Offered Books:
The Far Field by Madhuri Vijay
One Day in December by Josie Silver
An Anonymous Girl by Greer Hendricks & Sarah Pekkanen
Severance by Ling Ma
No Exit by Taylor Adams
Selected:
No Exit by Taylor Adams
Others Purchased:
Severance by Ling Ma
Sometimes a novel is hard to review through no fault of its own: maybe it was a genre that the critic is overly familiar with, so twists and turns are more easily spotted. Maybe they couldn't connect with the main character for whatever reason, so they didn't get as invested in the action. Or maybe the reviewer is just not in a reading mood, but still forces their way through the book out of a sense of obligation. That final point colors my opinions on this book.
I am a big proponent of reading what you like (get 30 pages into a novel and not enjoy it? Shelve it and move to something else!) and have thankfully reached a point where I will not force myself to continue reading a book that I do not enjoy just because I have finished it. Life is too short to turn a leisure activity into work.
The problem with this book is, when I started it, I very much enjoyed it. It follows Darby Thorne as she drives back to her dying mother, but gets caught in a snowstorm in Colorado and is stuck at a rest stop with several other people. While there, she discovers a kidnapped child in one of the other vehicles, with no idea who drives it.
Great premise, right? I got to around the point where Darby finds the child when I suddenly hit a wall: I just didn't feel like reading. And not just this novel - any other book I picked up was quickly set aside. This is not a rare occurrence in of itself, but for it to happen in the middle of a novel is rare. To make matters worse, despite forcing myself through this book, it still took me around two months to finish it (for context, a novel of this length is normally something I can read within a day or two).
Which is why reviewing this book is hard - so much momentum was lost just in the process of reading it that I don't know if the novel was draggy in areas, or if it was a symptom of my reader's block (for lack of a better term). Thinking about it, I do think it was a bit slow towards the beginning, but once the main action started, it was a solid read. The characters were believable, the villain was appropriately threatening, and Darby is an all-around great protagonist: I just had a hard time reading the book, so it is hard for me to say that I loved it, or even give it a full-hearted recommend.
It's worth a read, and maybe you'll enjoy it more than I did.
2.5 out of 5
If No Exit was a novel that just had the misfortune to be read at the wrong time, then Ling Ma's Severance is one that benefited greatly from the timing of its reading. It follows Candace Chen, a millennial working an office job that she does not love - but pays well - when there is suddenly a worldwide plague that is killing off the majority of the population. While initially everyone thinks 'Shen Fever' will be easily handled, it soon upsets the global supply chain and Candace finds herself essentially alone in New York City.
This was released in December of 2018.
It boggles my mind how prescient this novel ended up being when I finally read it in March of this year. While it was initially categorized as a satire, it's hard to read it as one in a post-COVID world. And it makes me glad to have read it later: I was already the in target audience for this novel and reading it this year gives me an appreciation for how well Ma crafted not only her protagonist, but how well Ma understood how a global pandemic would effect people.
Candace is an outstanding character - the novel is told entirely from her perspective, and Ma allows the reader to see both the good and the bad of her without having Candace be too knowledgeable of other character's motivations or softening Candace's harder edges.
The first half of the novel primarily focuses on getting to know Candace and how she arrived at her current job, with a bit of alluding to the world at large and the growing problems also. The second and meatier half focuses on Candace after she meets with a group of survivors and starts traveling with them.
The part of the book focusing on the group is where the novel really shines. Bob, the antagonist of the novel and the leader of the group, is a perfect villain: banal in his cruelty but savvy in his leadership. The other members of the group have enough personality that you can differentiate them from one another, but not so overwhelming in idiosyncrasies that it detracts from the novel. I might've liked more of the group dynamic to be explored, but - without giving too much away - it is understandable that Candace wouldn't be able to expand on that aspect.
I really enjoyed this book. Maybe it hit me a bit harder than it normally would have due to COVID, but every millennial should give this one a go, or just any lover of post-apocalyptic literature.
5 out of 5.
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