As a millennial drone, Candace Chen is devoted to her routine of going to work and going home. So when a plague that turns people into zombies hits, she barely notices it. When Candace finally decides to venture out of New York City because she can't survive on her own forever, she runs into a group of survivors with a cult-like operation. While the party promises to provide everything they need in the post-apocalyptic world, Candace must tread carefully and decide, perhaps for the first time, what she will sever ties with to survive.

When I think of a post-apocalyptic world overrun with zombies, I imagine action-packed, gory and loud scenes, and SEVERANCE completely flips the script. Ma brilliantly employs Candace's indifference to world events and her absurd belief in diligence as a satire to reflect millennials working in soulless jobs. Her upbringing as an Asian immigrant is another theme explored beautifully in SEVERANCE. While Candace's parents cut their ties with China to assimilate into the US, her job brings Candace right back to her "homeland", where Ma explores the interconnected links between the West and the East in the age of globalization.

There is so much more to unpack about SEVERANCE. For one, the "fevered" is stuck in a loop doing the same things every day, like how most maintain the same routine as office workers before the plague hits. The juxtaposition of Candace feeling stuck in her career pre-fever and her struggles assimilating into the survivor group post-apocalypse is another ingenious illustration of finding our place in a company that gives zero f*cks about our well-being.

SEVERANCE is an influential and visionary novel narrated by a character with a quiet and quirky voice yet packs a punch to shed light on the predicaments of capitalism. It's a book that readers will have different takeaways depending on their working experience, and one that I recommend to everyone.