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A review by clairebau
How High We Go in the Dark by Sequoia Nagamatsu
dark
tense
3.0
There was a lot I liked about this book. Near-perfect prose and incredible descriptions, all set atop a really cool concept. I also loved the mild body horror descriptions of the disease itself, so much that I wanted more of it.
Unfortunately, like most compilations of short stories, some were hits and some were misses. I loved the ones I loved: the story of a scientist's bond with a talking pig (I know, but hear me out) and one of a worker at a euthanasia theme park for kids (I KNOW, BUT HEAR ME OUT). These stories shined because they were conceptually cool and gorgeously bleak. But for every interesting story with likeable characters, there was at least one that was just... disappointingly boring. Girl prepares for funeral amid family problems. Person laments their dead relatives. Something something symbolism for the monotony of mass grief yeah, yeah, whatever... but I was bored, especially when I compared these chapters to the ones about, like, intergenerational space travel.
Besides being set in the same universe, there are some explicit connections between characters, but these, too, were... not very interesting? Why should I care that one character is the great, great grandniece of another when there's no plot significance? Honestly, I wouldn't be surprised to learn I'd missed some of these "connections," since I barely caught the ones I did on account of their meaning absolutely nothing. And I didn't like the last chapter, which felt pretentious. I guess I was more interested in the sci-fi aspects than the divine metaphysical.
Unfortunately, like most compilations of short stories, some were hits and some were misses. I loved the ones I loved: the story of a scientist's bond with a talking pig (I know, but hear me out) and one of a worker at a euthanasia theme park for kids (I KNOW, BUT HEAR ME OUT). These stories shined because they were conceptually cool and gorgeously bleak. But for every interesting story with likeable characters, there was at least one that was just... disappointingly boring. Girl prepares for funeral amid family problems. Person laments their dead relatives. Something something symbolism for the monotony of mass grief yeah, yeah, whatever... but I was bored, especially when I compared these chapters to the ones about, like, intergenerational space travel.
Besides being set in the same universe, there are some explicit connections between characters, but these, too, were... not very interesting? Why should I care that one character is the great, great grandniece of another when there's no plot significance? Honestly, I wouldn't be surprised to learn I'd missed some of these "connections," since I barely caught the ones I did on account of their meaning absolutely nothing. And I didn't like the last chapter, which felt pretentious. I guess I was more interested in the sci-fi aspects than the divine metaphysical.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Child death, Death, and Terminal illness