This was a pretty great finale. Interestingly, the dynamic duo from the previous book are solidified partners now, though still ostensibly despised by the murder squad. They’re given busy work that turns out to be not a simple Murder. At all. A woman is murdered in a domestic dispute and her best friend thinks it’s a mystery date dude… and that’s about all they have to go on. Only, the more they dig into the victim, the more things don’t add up. Her entire persona seems constructed and the number one suspect is too easy a target.

Meanwhile, the social politics haunt Antoinette, the lead investigator and protagonist. She’s sick to death of her all-male colleagues, continually dealing with the same kind of sexism that we see in the first two books. Not much has changed, but judging from the age of Frank’s daughter in the third book, small world building things like that suggest it’s been a solid while - probably a decade and change. It’s hard for Antoinette to know who to trust. She keeps disintegrating, as the case begins to stall.

It’s a solid book. But my favourite parts of the series have been where it straddles literary lines, usually by deep diving into the past of the characters, which break wide open due to the case. But that doesn’t really happen with this and the previous book. They have their dynamics to negotiate, but it feels much more like genre fiction. It’s a bit tropey and the prose are still great, but I don’t think the character work is up to snuff. And without the past, it kind of feels like the first book, only with a different location and it wanting to address the gaslighting sexism Antoinette deals with, which is how she functions in the previous book, too. I liked the resolution of that. But… it does still feel like a conventional end.

It would be interesting to read this first, possibly. Although it certainly mirrors The Passenger, the ending is known via that book—so it could be fun going in not knowing that. Though, this book has less of a plot than it, so I can see why Passenger was chosen to go first.

Both are cerebral and melancholic, which feels on brand for McCarthy. This one is purely audio recordings between the main character and a therapist, and that’s about it. If you are looking for something plotty, don’t pick it up. Probably, you know this already from The Passenger, but just in case. While that book has conversations about science, this is basically only that. There’s no physicality or interiority. Expect only dialogue.

She is an outlier, just like Bobby, though far more singular because of the mental facilities she has available. The cohort, or mental constructs, are much more elucidated in this, as you’d expect. But again, themes about how society isn’t constructed for outliers, and the metrics aren’t useable or useful when applied to people like her. And yet, from what we are aware of now, if society was constructed by people like that, it would be far better, because designing even for accessibility has provided immeasurable positive changes. Instead, we have what we have. The information design around branches of science is really well done. I don’t know anything about them and felt like I was getting it. And the “story” is the Why of what we already know she has done, from The Passenger. Which is why I was saying it would be interesting to have read this first.

Re read thoughts at the bottom:

In probably over 85% dialogue, Bobby Western, a diver mourning the loss of his sister, hounded by the government for unknown reasons, is actually seeking answers not through a typical journey—but through the alignment, or realignment of his self, through talking to a large cast of characters. And what those discussions predominantly are about fall into two camps, for the most part: Metaphysics and philosophy.

One would assume Bobby would gather himself and take on the government and unravel the reason he is being targeted, as he’s more-or-less baffled as to why. What he actually wants is to be left alone to process grief and to continue to exist off-the-grid. As he discusses a wide range of topics his “journey”, or traversal, is to circumnavigate the obstacle entirely. By way of adapting himself with the information provided to him by others who are are similar outliers. Bobby doesn’t get to help define reality—that is for those in power. Not the people who should be in charge in constructs (social or otherwise), but mostly people who simply got there first, and attempt to make everybody else play their game.

The pivotal decision, then, at least for Bobby, is whether or not to accept the conditions of the engagement put to him. This is by no means a plot driven book. The movement is in his interiority. And alternating with it is a similar, but different interiority of his sister, who is grieving. We don’t know the time and place in which the conversations she has with a construct of “the kid” take place. But again, understanding via information received is the progress of the book in these sections, too. And it falls into question further: What is reality, why do accept life as defined by our government? What happens when you do not fit in and do not accept how society functions?

As an imperative, The Passenger wants to show what the byproduct of our civilization does to dissent and dissidents. To those who poke the bear by doing nothing but existing. The intelligent and exceptional, if they can function at all, are treated as a kind of cancer. And to destroy something without understanding it is a certain kind of inhumane evil we often visit upon just about everything as a society and culture.

And so this book is about greater understanding of all things as a substation for a more traditional book with a plot and catharsis and obstacles that must be addressed as we have seen before. It raises more questions than it answers and it shows contradictions that are painful and beautiful. As each character is a foil to present Bobby with an opportunity to comprehend something he hadn’t, it is posed to the reader as a simulacrum of the experience Bobby is having.

For me, it was textured and rich even solely on audio, with fantastic performances by two narrators. I highly recommend it, as it gets into a certain rhythm that is just entrancing and commands attention in a very organic way. I am very curious what the reading experience is like, and I will be waiting for the second book in this duology very much, I have to say.
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So, I just read it for a second time: I like it even more the second go around. I actually found that there’s more answers than I had previously remembered. The end of Western is pretty seriously codified and telegraphed. At the very start, I think it’s the tender on the diving crew? (but possibly not) says they’ve had a dream in which, paraphrased, Western was navigating the bottom and his only way out was the cutting off of all of his friends. This is right off the gun.

When the G-men show up after the dive, where a passenger is missing and he is not put in jail, but is effectively “arrested” by the IRS (and other agencies, presumably), Western begins a whistle-stop tour of those people in his orbit, so-called friends. All progress towards what his action will be is codified in those discussions. They’re comprised of outcasts and misfits themselves, and the alternating chapters with his deceased sister aid the metaphysical breakdown of his progress, as they perceive the world completely differently. Yet life, as constructed by our society, serves neither of them. She is the allegedly schizophrenic, with a chorus within her constructs as intractable as any “real” person. And the notion of ideas having traction, momentum—and a subsequent detractor, especially when it’s a persona with her mind, lead to an excitable conclusion. Just as Western does, in his own way. There is no real choice because of how things were laid out even further back than the ‘60s, when this takes place. The only choice Western really has is in the very last few sentences.

Dang, Maggie sure ends books well. As I was hoping, this is a really satisfying culmination of the trilogy. Lots of reveals, wild and weird resolutions, heartbreak, and, to some degree, redemption. I think I prefer the format of the Raven Cycle more, with each being a lot more self contained, but the ending of this packs far more punch than the cycle. What a wild ride.

This is my second time reading this now, and I liked it more the second go around, I think. Probably because I’ve read the next book too, and the connective tissue is more there than I recalled initially, in my first reading of that middle book.

Boy, I think it’s amazing what a turn around Declan has in this one. I really disliked him going into it, and then things really click into place in a satisfying way. It is certainly an opening salvo of a novel as well. More so than the Raven Cycle, this is plotted as a series. It is less eclectic than that series, therefor. But I don’t mind it. I’m buying what it is selling. But I do wonder if the X factor for a five star read will be the last book - when everything is resolved and coalesces. Whereas the previous cycle I had two five star reads because they feel self contained and specific books I felt were much stronger than others. This could be in a bindup of all three and it might get a fairer rating. I guess we’ll see how I feel with the next ones.

Dream thieves and nightmares and Bride and forgery as a persona and Adam/Ronan and weird visions and government conspiracies. It’s a juicy, darker, yummier… uh, fiction. It doesn’t feel as fluffy and YA. The stakes are larger, though there’s mini heartache along the way, of course. The Factions are set to collide. What will happppeeenn everybody knows but me because the third book has been out long enough that I’m the slow poke!

I thought this would be up my alley - even tried it on audio as well - but it’s just the odd book where i find it slippery. Im reading it but nothing is resonating and the voice is just slippery. I have some friends that really loved this though, so it’s unfortunate I can’t find anything to keep me coming back, on either format.

This was excellent in terms of characterization, prose, and the rendering of a more realistic venture into the killing of Buffalo, and the ramifications there of. Maybe I’ve read and seen a bunch of stories like this, but the plot seemed pretty well-worn. You will probably see everything coming for every individual character, as well as the Point. But in terms of this kind of story being told, in a conventional manner, it’s one of the best.

This reminds me of Contact by Sagan. Neat ideas, but written so dryly and boring—and in this particular case, also featuring a truly forgettable, monotone narrator—prose work that reminds me of reading a text book in science class. That’ll either be your bag or it isn’t. It sure isn’t mine. I couldn’t tell you if this was substantive or not, it is so mind numbing slippery, I just kept tuning in and out. So: I’m out.

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I can see this being quite a miss for some people. The author is ostensibly? a self insert and so there’s a lot of meta dialogue about the book we are consuming, and writing in general. As he goes about selfishly, in an irreverent way, colonizing his life. I found it surprisingly funny; usually this kind of humour is a miss. And it was quite engaging because I was trying to figure out the sort-of puzzle pieces that comprised the novel throughout.

It’s certainly a not-much-happens post modern self indulgent piece though, so I can see why the ratings for it tend to be polarizing. Most of it worked for me. Though, I wonder if, under a hyper specific lens, all the self deprecation balances out to a worthwhile project—but then, that’s kind of the whole point - so I dug it.