Essentially an absurdist, apoplectic satire where a man dies and is reconstituted in something like a kafkaesque purgatory resembling human life as we know it--and he gets to peek into the "real" world from time to time to check in on his pregnant wife and strange house guest, who came into their lives shortly before his death.

The plot beats of this story were interesting enough to keep me reading throughout, and that's the kindest thing I can say about this. The humor was more miss than hit. Because it targets primarily a lot of philosophical intersections, which don't have concrete answers, it doesn't feel like any kind of actual interrogation of the schools of thought and is more like fodder for joke after joke after joke after joke. It gets pretty tideous precisely because it can't actually say anything about these subjects, and it's so long because its primary preoccupation is this absurdist bent that continues to perform magic tricks after the audience has seen through a trick.

Character work was fine, but rooted in, again, absurdism; undercutting any tension or emotion that was developing. Just when I was putting it down there would be a moment that lands, however. And I did complete it, so I can't bring myself to fully condemn it. I'm sure people more interested in this brand of humor would love it. Had it been truncated and reworked to not undercut itself it would have been great, I think.

2.5 rounded up -

Thanks to Netgalley for the E-ARC