Reviews with content warning for Miscarriage - The Employees

A lot of people said very good things about this book. And I can see how some people like it. It reminded me of nothing more than a prose book that desperately wanted to be a poem(conceptually, not in terms of poetic description), with transcripts of employee statements taking the place of stanzas. Unfortunately I ran into the same difficulty I have with poetry, which is that I prefer something a bit more narratively concrete to hold onto. The vibes were individually right, but they slipped through my fingers whenever I tried to assemble them into a coherent whole.

I believe I understood what happened, over the course of the several employee statements that contained plot narration. And the promised meditation on the meaning of humanity was certainly delivered. But the rest felt like repetitive filler to me, vibing without plot or character for a dozen pages or more before we got to the next brief nugget of information. A few times this worked out well, but most of the time it just felt like I was getting the same vibes I'd already gotten earlier in the reading experience.

I did like the ending. It was fitting and evoked the perfect emotions. I particularly appreciated that the experimental format of the story had an in-universe explanation. The journey that got us there just didn't do it for me, though. Given the fact that most other reviewers loved it, I'm gonna chalk this one up as Not For Me.

Content Warnings

discarded_dust_jacket's review against another edition

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challenging mysterious reflective slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.5

I’m not even sure how to talk about this book; its structure and voice is so unique. It’s strange, it’s deeply unsettling, it’s poignant, at times beautiful, and utterly entrancing.

This story asks us what it means to be human, while offering a satirical critique of the capitalist model of human worth in measures of productivity, all packaged in the form of a beautifully-crafted space opera where some very creepy alien artifacts are infecting the crew of a company spaceship with strange dreams, skin lesions, and these odd notions of personhood beyond occupational duty.

Content Warnings

spaghettireads's review against another edition

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dark mysterious reflective medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.5

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