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bluejayreads's review against another edition
dark
emotional
sad
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
This is a weird little book. It’s very short – almost into novella range – very creative, and very bizarre.
Ava works at not-Ikea (it has a different name in the book but if you’ve ever been to Ikea you’ll know it’s Ikea) and it’s a sucky retail job. Then a customer falls through a portal to a parallel universe, and Ava and her recent ex Jules, due to budget cuts and being the lowest seniority, have to be the ones to get her back. Armed only with a piece of weird tech that is supposed to guide them through the multiverse, they have to travel through parallel universes’ not-Ikeas to try and find the missing customer.
Ava and Jules are both stunningly accurate representatives of the weird limbo generation between young Millennial and old GenZ. They know capitalism is the problem but still work crappy jobs to live. Ava is a highly relatable ball of anxiety. Jules lives in a personal chaos field but is more capable than anyone believes. Jules also uses they/them pronouns, which customers can’t seem to figure out and their manager refuses to use.
The breakup between Ava and Jules was rough, and the adventure through the multiverse seemed to be an opportunity for them to work out their issues and see if they could still be friends more than an opportunity for the reader to explore parallel universes. They spend a noteworthy amount of time in only three universes (I think they may have briefly passed through a couple more on the way but they were barely mentioned), and in all three the book is more about their reactions and interactions in the face of the weird and dangerous than the actual weird and dangerous stuff.
Finna could have easily been expanded to twice its length or more – they could have spent more time in other universes, or the ambiguous ending could have been a halfway point to launch them into new adventures in the multiverse. But it also worked the way it is. There is a second book, but it focuses on a different employee from the not-Ikea, and I don’t know that we’ll see Ava and Jules again. But that’s okay. This story is open-ended and leaves lots of opportunities, and I like to imagine Ava and Jules both end up happy.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Blood, Death, Violence, and Injury/Injury detail
Moderate: Transphobia and Toxic relationship
Misgendering (mentions, not on page)
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