Was looking for an easy, entertaining read and this fit the bill well enough. The world building is a bit lackluster compared to other fantasy series I‘ve read and the characters are predictable (same old YA love triangle trope). All of the perspective is first-person from the protagonist which can be limiting. It‘s a fun read as long as you don‘t expect too much from it. One of the few times I‘ve heard the Netflix version is better than the book.

Overall, I liked this book. There were a lot of pieces that really made me think. The satire of it all would‘ve been a lot more enjoyable if the current world hadn‘t become so similar to what Huxley was warning against. By the end I felt sad and drained because the consumerism we have today is in many ways so much worse than what he could have imagined 100 years ago. Something to keep in mind if you‘re considering reading it—it can be a downer.

“‘Did you eat something that didn‘t agree with you?‘ asked Bernard.
The Savage nodded. ‘I ate civilization.‘
‘What?‘
‘It poisoned me; I was defiled. And then,‘ he added, in a lower tone, ‘I ate my own wickedness.‘”

“‘But God doesn‘t change.‘
‘Men do, though.‘
‘What difference does that make?‘
‘All the difference in the world‘”

“Actual happiness always looks pretty squalid in comparison with the overcompensations for misery. And, of course, stability isn‘t nearly so spectacular as instability. And being contented has none of the glamour of a good fight against misfortune, none of the picturesqueness of a struggle with temptation, or a fatal overthrow by passion or doubt. Happiness is never grand.”

“That is the secret of happiness and virtue—liking what you‘ve got to do. All conditioning aims at that: making people like their unescapable social destiny.”

I like the first half of this book—the circumstances of Daisy‘s birth, her childhood, her young adulthood. But the second half really seemed to drag for me. And maybe that‘s the point? A kind of commentary on the early potential of girls that gets consumed by the obligations of being a woman (wife, mother, daughter, employee). But I still struggled to finish. There were parts I liked and parts I didn‘t. But overall I wouldn‘t read it again.

This was a great read. I don‘t watch much talk show TV, so I wasn‘t really familiar with Trevor Noah outside of the occasional YouTube clip here and there. His account of growing up in apartheid/post-apartheid South Africa, the generational impact on its people, his mother‘s strength, it was all fascinating. Yet at the same time, told in Noah‘s uplifting and encouraging tone. Whether you watch his shows out not, I definitely recommend.

“The point is that you have to live a lesser life in order to live a longer one. Don‘t you see that?”

“I was afraid,” she says. “Of all the things that can go wrong when people are attached to each other”

“Klara won‘t be a woman who is sawed in half or tied in chains—nor will she be rescued or liberated. She‘ll save herself. She‘ll be the saw.”

“Things begin, things end. Just when we seem to arrive at a quiet place we are swept up, suddenly, between the body‘s smooth, functioning predictability and the need for disruption. We do irrational things, outrageous things. Or else something will come along and intervene, an unimaginable foe.”

What I like about this book is that even though I‘ve never been to a post-war, seven-day bull fighting fiesta in Spain, I still feel the deeply-rooted ennui of its characters. They‘re just people with shallow happiness and deep sorrow that I think is relatable, but it‘s written in such a subtle way. He never just says anyone‘s sad or depressed, but you feel it nonetheless. The “lost” are in every generation, and Hemingway speaks directly to them.

While it‘s probably not my favorite Gaiman novel, it‘s still a lot of fun. A great little delve into the dark and forgotten cracks of fantasy. I think only Gaiman could make the London sewer system sound magical. I also find the protagonist, Richard, to be appropriately confused, skeptical and frightened by the whole experience, which is a rare change from the typical hero who always seems ready for destiny.

This novel is beautifully written. Even though the primary theme is suffering, and all its characters suffer, their suffering is poetry. Their suffering is an entangled web with each other, with the passage of time, with the earth itself, and Peixoto just makes the whole thing read like beautifully heartbreaking poetry.

“Isn‘t it pretty to think so?”

“We‘ll vanish from each other‘s life. But we won‘t forget. And to remember will be the greatest suffering, to remember what we were wherever we end up and not to be able to be anything anymore. To remember speaking in the way that only we spoke and to remain with that language in our heads, that way of speaking which we‘ll never use with anyone else. Today I‘ll leave you, knowing that I‘ve always loved you for you having always been with me.”

“Richard began to understand darkness: darkness as something solid and real, so much more than a simple absence of light. He felt it touch his skin, questing, moving, exploring—gliding through his mind. It slipped into his lungs, behind his eyes, into his mouth…”

“And I said no more. Not because I had no more to say but because there was no way to say it, not even without words. There‘s no way to explain all that we‘re saying when we say suffering.”

“There is no hope, for we‘re too small, we amount to very little. We‘re a pine needle before a fire, we‘re a speck of dirt before an earthquake, we‘re a drop of dew before a storm, dear friend.”

“I think: men are sheep that don‘t sleep, sheep that on the inside are wolves.”

Admittedly, I struggled to get into this book. Of its 300 pages, it took about 130 before I really felt interest and I even, briefly, considered bailing. But I am so glad I didn‘t. I didn‘t care for the main character at the start and disliked reading his narrative, but he goes through some pretty tremendous character growth. By the end I was deeply invested in each new page. If you‘re giving it a read and aren‘t sure at first, stick with it.

“How does one hate a country, or love one?... I know people, I know towns, farms, hills and rivers and rocks, I know how the sun at sunset in autumn falls on the side of a certain plowland in the hills; but what is the sense of giving a boundary to all that, of giving it a name and ceasing to love where the name ceases to apply? What is love of one‘s country; is it hate of one‘s uncountry? Then it‘s not a good thing.”

“You‘ve a good heart,” she told him. “Sometimes that‘s enough to see you safe wherever you go.” Then she shook her head. “But mostly, it‘s not.”

I loved this book! Despite being twenty years old and about the apocalypse, I still came away from it feeling hopeful about the future and the meaning of friendship. Can‘t wait to see David Tennent and Michael Sheen in Amazon Prime‘s take on it.