Fiction | Book Chatter

Sea of Tranquility
By Emily St. John Mandel
Knopf, 9780593321447, April 2022, 272pp.

The Short of It:

Reading Mandel guarantees exploratory thought processes.

The Rest of It:

Summing this story up is not easy. It’s a little bit of everything. There’s space exploration in the form of airships to other worlds, time travel, very interesting characters who float between this world and the next. Really, the story asks the question, what if what we are living in is a simulation? A carefully constructed “reality” that is anything but real?

Sounds wild, right? It is and it’s fascinating the way Mandel takes these characters through different time periods. As with most time travel stories, changes made anywhere within the continuum impact things down the line. Mandel softly tiptoes around this as her characters are warned over and over again what the end result will be. And in the midst of all of this, one of those time periods involves a pandemic.

I really enjoyed this short novel. It provided so much food for thought and was really well done. If you loved Station Eleven, you will appreciate this story as well.

Source: Review copy provided by the publisher.
Disclosure: This post contains Indiebound affiliate links.

Notes on Your Sudden Disappearance
By Alison Espach
Henry Holt and Co., 9781250823144, May 2022, 352pp.

The Short of It:

This book met all my expectations and then some.

The Rest of It:

Sally adores her older sister Kathy. They are about as different as two sisters can be, and yet they managed to do quite well in their shared bedroom. Sure, they squabble but Sally looks up to Kathy because Kathy always knows the right thing to say or do. She is sophisticated without trying and yet when they are alone together, she shares all her insecurities with Sally, which makes Kathy flawed just like the rest of them.

One summer, as they while away their hours by the community pool, Kathy catches the eye of Billy. A good looking boy, working at the snack stand. After some missteps, the two fall hard for one another, which leaves Sally to observe her sister’s new found infatuation from afar. She can’t help but feel a little jealous because one, she wanted to spend the summer with Kathy and two, what would it be like to have a boyfriend like Billy? She wonders if she will ever have someone like him.

As the summer unfolds, Sally finds herself attached to Billy in a way that no one wants. Linked by tragedy, the two struggle to find a way to move on and let me tell you, it’s heartbreaking and poignant but in such a good way. Memory and what could have been, had me re-reading passages as I slowly turned the pages. These characters leap off the page and you feel for them.

I loved this book. I don’t know what I was expecting when I picked it up but it’s good and I didn’t want it to end. It will be on my fave list at the end of the year.

Source: Review copy provided by the publisher.
Disclosure: This post contains Indiebound affiliate links.

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