"There is certain work that cannot be done well and cannot be done poorly. It can only be done or undone."

I picked up this book and it picked on me. Every page was a mask I tried on, a job I had, a life I lived. I felt everything and nothing at all. But I did my job. I finished the book. In all its absurd, mundane, magically realistic, satirical, charming, existential, Kafkaesque wonder. And what did I get for finishing my job? Another job. And another after that. I unread the book and read it again. I auditioned for the part of philosophical reader, but they told me I was too concrete and told me to go use my skills to lay sidewalks in the moist, soggy areas of my brain. The unused paths, the things I'd rather not think about. I got stuck in the concrete, my legs heavy and aching. I auditioned for the role of existential dread, and I almost got the part. More wallowing, they told me, and had I tried cutting myself off at the knees? There's a me-shaped hole in the concrete now. Many things have tried to take my place, to crush and twist and compact themselves into a hollow memory of where I once was. I got the role for temporary insanity instead.

Tl;DR - A short read, yet delightfully strange and beautifully impactful little fever dream of a book. Heavy on the absurd and magical realism. One of my favorite reads this year. The audiobook narrator was incredible, and already I can't wait to reread.

”If you know it exists, it knows you exist. The more you know about it, the more it knows about you. If you can see it, it can see you.”

I’m holding this book in my hands. I must have read it. How, I’m not sure, as many chapters are blank. Creamy white parchment staring back at me that was once full of… what was it full of?

I’m holding this book in my hands. My stomach is queasy and I don’t know why. The pages are glued together, somehow.

I’m holding this book in my hands. The cover burns ideas into my palms. I had to drop the book, ashes crusted under my fingernails.

I’m holding… I thought I was holding a book in my hands. Maybe I was? There is something lurking in the book. Eating the pages. Shredding the words.

In my hands… hands? They’re used for… something. For… writing down things that will end the world. For weaving stories and not-stories. For screaming with no sound.

TL; DR — This book felt very smart. The plot twists were magnificent. The psychological horror of it all made my jaw drop on several occasions. It’s sci-fi and speculative fiction, it’s cosmic horror and it’s technological thriller, it’s uncanny/weird and reality-bending fiction. It explores themes of memory and forgetting, information as power, knowledge as a weapon, identity and free will, reality and perception, the fragility of the human condition, and evolution and posthumanism.

The YEARNING!!!

You know a book is good when during reading it, you already cannot wait to reread it.

I, a sapphic, humbly endorse this short mommy domme vampiric tale of 18th century yearning.