A review by ashmeanything
The Moonday Letters by Emmi Itäranta

3.0

A friend described a book once as being "mostly vibes", and that's the perfect description for this. The language is beautiful, moody, and ethereal, and it sets the tone well for an overall theme of loss and missed connections. However, it's not just that, and I think ambition outran the author here. In addition to a romantic story of reminiscing, there's a plot of terrorism and climate change that, while really interesting, is not able to reach its full potential. The two genres really fight for attention throughout, meaning that the tension of each kinda fizzles out by the end. Choosing an epistolary format was cool at first, but it ended up keeping distance between the two halves so they never quite met. The lovely prose really saved this and made it palatable, but I wanted the plot to get more focus.

Content warnings for mental health, illness and injury, terrorism, animal death and injury, apocalypse, loss, and mention of sexual assault.

Used for 2024 r/Fantasy Bingo (book club, hard mode); also fits small town (arguably), multi-POV, prologues & epilogues (hard mode), survival (arguably), reference materials (arguably hard mode), romantasy, and judging a book by its cover.