Quietly, terrifyingly atmospheric. Very literary in terms of not expecting normal genre tropes, nor pacing. But with that comes great character work and a methodical construction that delivers on a different kind of experience. I found it a really solid piece of writing.

Legitimately, probably intersectional with horror? If I knew more about horror I could be more definitive.

Plot wise it’s deceptively simple: A man goes to a tuberculosis sanatorium to visit his cousin and ends up being afflicted himself. Confined to a microcosm in a microworld, he becomes enmeshed in a philosophical, spiritual, ideological struggle as he negotiates the alternate way of life.

From alternate social currency and decorum, to the wildly different socialization and substance to the conversation in the place, it becomes clear both that this book—like all incredible works, I think—is about, essentially everything. Sometimes literally. Chapters abstract thoughts and feelings with digressions into scientific knowledge or stories within stories, constructing a mythology that taps into romanticism. Symbols and occultism and permeate the book as Hans struggles and basically goes through a second wind coming-of-age that manages to parallel the larger struggle Europe is having to reckon with as war approaches.

I am 100% certain I did not understand everything this book was doing. Probably, I’ve only picked up on a few of the themes and don’t know enough about romanticism as it relates to Germany at that time period to really have even tapped into that one vein adequately. Multiple allegories for good and evil, life and death, corruption and innocence converge with the romantic themes and spiritual journey, endeavour. It’s a work I had to just let wash over me rather than analyze, otherwise I think it might have been overwhelming trying to understand everything.

Needless to say: it lives up to its repetition, for me.

Olga and her brother share a narrative in which their radicalized mother abandons them for a cause, leaving them to forge a path as Latinx people trying to break into white centric career paths. As they cope with childhood trauma and try to make their mark, they each reach crisis points at intersections of their identity as gentrification and corruption encroach and subsume them.

As a whole, I’d describe this as incredibly ambitious, and that’s why it didn’t quite succeed, for me. No source of narrative tension introduced, plot beat or otherwise, gets actually resolved or interrogated in any meaningful way. It scratches the surface of a lot of issues while eschewing things already introduced.

The resolution with Olga herself and the romantic interest is basically a deus ex machina moment off the back of a sexual assault that becomes a plot device for that relationship. I really, really disliked the handling of that. But the issue persists in every moment that is supposed to have, causing me to put the number one criticism I have as unearned moments. The prose work is generic and macro and there’s no weight given to anything that happens as a result. It never fully managed to have me invested in any particular thread, nor was I convinced the narrative itself was.

Excellent classic sci-fi. Superb at provoking interesting questions. Maybe The question for me: Who are you actually, when opportunity presents itself. Money, or power, in whatever form it takes, is absolutely terrifying when looked at from that lens. I’d wager that if you grew up in poverty, even more so. People become their absolute worst selves as they achieve what we label success in our society.

What if they the abstraction of influence was literalized, though? Replicating how we are socialized with that dynamic in place. Where the powerless are the designers of the world; dream crafting reality, what would that look like? The inclination to do good with power that essentially scales with ambition is a fantastic critique for many aspects of our society. From the meek “dreamers” in history, such as those we find in the future of this text, the IT space, Silicon Valley, etc. they really have shaped humanity. In some ways enriching life, other ways literally helped to destroy it further with those initial good intentions.

One of the best analogy for capitalism in this generation is that of the save the trees! Do you remember that? Save them! We’re cutting them down. Clear cutting, the world is going to be affected terribly. In response we have gone fairly paperless. And the servers we use to do this are now arguably far worse for the environment than that ever was. There are only seemingly intelligent solutions in capitalism. Stuff we can’t see the repercussions of initially. But capitalism is inherently a stupid beast. There is no good outcome and every solution becomes a new problem.

Such is the case in this book, only directly pointed at thought mechanics and the nature of humanity. I love when sci-fi books interrogate the human experience and make you think. Had this been a bit tighter of a story, short as it is, it would have easily have been 5 stars. As is, a solid 4 and more interesting than most scifi churned out today.

Loved the voice crafted here, though uneven, and the incredible nuanced rendering of the protagonist. The internalization of her socialization replicated in her interactions, even as she struggles against—as people so often do—the very same thing she lashes others about. Including, arguably, her repressed sexuality. But I found it difficult to actually decide where to land on that because of the repression of essentially every aspect of her selfhood. The ending is completely chilling. Absolutely perfect.

One of the best I’ve seen at visual storytelling a set of pretty complex set of emotions, as well as a dichotomy within the interiority of a character.

This book is so damn good on so many fronts. From a macro standpoint, it’s a benchmark from a inclusion standpoint. All the characters, but especially the main character, are multicultural and unique and interesting identities that is well thought out and immeshed in the story. It doesn’t feel shoe-horned in and unabashedly, endearingly, queer.

Culture is an entire character in this book as well. I would love an adult fantasy novel from the author because the only things I didn’t like were bound up in the YA structure.

Otherwise, I think it’s flawless. The premise is so interesting and thematically tight. The pacing is very tight, the characters are vivid. I listened to this on audiobook and the narration was great, and I already know I’ll buy the book as well. You should read this book~~

4.5 rounded up
I have complex feelings about this that are hard to unpack.

This is the story of a young adult named Georgia, who, as she heads into college life, is questioning her sexuality, only being aware of gay, bi, and straight as options. A fresh start with a roommate forces Georgia to confront these aspects of her, precariously negotiating social situations with her two best friends and new acquaintance.

What totally worked for me—keeping in mind I’ve got an intensely myopic life experience as a rural Canadian white millennial man—was the portrayal of various identities. It seems like it’s had sensitive reading and is explicit about sexuality being separate from gender and how diverse the ace spectrum is, which makes it more complex for Georgia when negotiating what fits best for her.

This explicitness comes at a bit of a cost, though. It’s a heavily character driven story that feels, at times, like an after school special trying to communicate various identities through sometimes artificial situations. But the dynamics, dialogue, and just genuine earnest nature of the characters seeps through these cracks such that they’re only discernible sometimes.

I vacillated from being annoyed there wasn’t a distinct plot and not really any themes or motifs, to just genuinely moved, to pretty much moved all the time. And then I couldn’t put it down.

Ironically, some of the times this didn’t work for me were mirrored with Georgia’s own experience talking with two of her friends; specifically when she laughs about people just always talking about sex and thinking about sex and romance in a non-meta context. Sometimes it does feel like this is just a series of scenes where people talk about sex and sexuality to death, and oh-my-god does anything else happen to these people At All? I was set on giving this 4 stars, actually. But I think that that reading is somewhat coloured for me, and not all that fair, as I am on the ace spectrum and my own aversion to it isn’t fair to project onto the text? I think, objectively, this book is About that and states so up front, so penalizing it simply because it’s not my experience would be unfair. I just had to laugh because it at once feels incredible reading a story about an ace character, but then not fully connecting with it because it’s about lots of sexual dynamics, and it’s hard to care about that, for me.

All in all, I haven’t read much ace representation. This is a young adult novel, so I feel like the after school special engineered aspects of the story make sense. Yes it’s a bit heavy handed in it’s inclusion and it’s representation. But I think this is exactly the kind of book young adults need. I’d really love to read adult fiction with ace representation that isn’t so Identities As People, as this. Yeah the characters in this have other hobbies somewhat, but everything feels very peripheral to their sexual identities. And that’s very YA. And, to be fair, this made me tear up and cry a few times, which very rarely happens. So I think the 5 stars is very much earned.

In every way tighter than Dark Places, especially thematically and pacing wise. Really like the prose and the overall tone of the macabre.

I’ve been rationing these. Finished the first a few months back and could have easily binged them all, but prefer to keep them on hand for “the right time”. Or maybe I just know the writing is so addictive and consuming and I like to do small things like work, eat, and sleep.

Another exquisitely rendered instalment. But this time the contrast between the first sneaks up on you. When I thought about where these characters had come from and where they ended up. It seems wild that there are still two more books. Again I wonder to what extent this is a self insert, but also don’t really want to know. Either way, this remains one of the few books I’ve read with the feeling of little happening and so much happening at once, and how when the character work is at a high enough level, it does feel like the rest follows.