genre: science fiction/dystopia
Ari has been released from prison. The world she left behind is gone and California is now an independent republic. When the fighting has died down and the curfew is lifted, Ari joins her roommate at a party to celebrate. This party, though, is a hinge moment where what always felt real is suddenly in question. Something beyond bizarre takes place that will change Ari's life and make the reality of our timeline feel more expansive and yet more precarious.
I'm so anti spoiler that I honestly don't want to say anything else because for me, the power of St John Mandel's writing is to discover it along the way. I am SO glad that I listened to The Singer's Gun first because there are so many little threads here that tickled my brain. There are so many contrasts, both macro and micro, that make you really think about where our choices take us and how the circumstances we are surrounded by can have such a huge impact on the choices we make and then how we end up. I also loved her ideas about how many DIFFERENT lives we have, as relationships and neighborhoods and jobs come and go, and how each of these unique lives will make us a distinctly new person that starts the next one.
If you already like her writing, I think you'll like this. I for sure did. Her characters aren't what get me - I don't find anyone particularly lovable and I'm not super invested in individuals as I am in the WORLD and all the pieces that weave in and out. It makes me want to go back and read the couple other books of hers I haven't read yet. Her speculative way of twining what COULD be with what IS just really works for me.
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