A review by violentdelights
In Universes by Emet North

slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
 I wish I liked this book more; that is not to say I dislike it, only that I wish I liked it more. I wish I could give this whole-hearted a 5-star rating, but unfortunately my feelings fluctuate so much that I probably won’t give this a star rating at all. I think where I get stuck is that I wanted a book with more than marginal pieces of overlap with the original story, but everything was so distantly connected from one another that it felt more like a collection of unrelated short stories than something with a strong through line.

 Saying that, as a collection of short stories it is quite strong. In Part I, the first parallel universe - that is, the second chapter - is the strongest. The introduction to Britt and the horse and Raffi’s greatest regret, one that haunts them in every universe, was almost a strong enough throughline that it carried me throughout the book. At the very least, it was palpable and heart-breaking and devastatingly human. 

However, the rest of Part I sort of fell flat for me. There were strengths of weaknesses unique to each story, but in very broad strokes they can be summed up like this: the settings were beautiful; the male characters were nothing. The haunting taxidermy garden, the larger-than-life sandcastle architecture, the echoing hotel cistern – these were all magical backdrops for our trans and female characters. Unfortunately, you just could not pay me to care about Buck or Caleb or whoever Alice’s husband was. The only one with any depth is Graham, who
fluctuates pronoun usage throughout universes.
 

Part II was where the money was for me – every single story was a banger upon surrealist banger. There was an octopus fetus and a motherhorde and a Sontag reference; what more could you ask for? Everything was absurdist while still having feelings deeply grounded in reality, which I believe the best absurdist stories require. This entire section orbits around the theme of regret – the whole book does this, ultimately, but it is strongest in Part II. Here, the regret manifests itself in incurable illnesses and haunted houses and self-fracturing, and it is absolutely mind-blowing. 

Part III makes me feel out of my depth It brings Britt and the horse and Raffi’s regret back to the forefront, and crafts a longer story that brings all the former unconnected ones into a single universe. These things I loved. But The City of Refuge never felt fully in my grasp as a concept, and the new characters – Miko and Rebecca, namely – did not have the same weight that the other characters only managed to gain over several universes of development. Ultimately, there was little I understood, and less I cared about, in this part. 

In Universes is a wonderful concept. It is beautifully written. It has real and true characters with honest and heart-wrenching flaws. It has fantastical elements and settings. To me, however, it cannot live up to the sum of these parts. Maybe in another universe I understand it the way it was meant to be understood.