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kfan's review
4.0
I got to read an early copy of this book and I really loved it. It's kind of about jobs and our relationship to our work, but it's also kind of about the ways our ideas about the environment & nature come crashing up against the brutal reality of it. It's about marriage and friendship and what we share about ourselves and what we keep secret. BUT it's also a spy thriller?
KIND OF: the story is about a low level bureaucrat who has spent his life working on an arctic-related government secret. But he's never actually been to the arctic. Until now! There's a mission to the north! And the story of his journey is set against so many other adventurers who traveled to the north, looking for something and often dying in the process.
This book is a good antidote to manly adventure/chosen one stories. Oscar isn't anyone's hero or savior, there's just some stuff happening around him. The stuff happening around him is an intense and gripping thriller, but that's all in the corners of the story, and Oscar could care less.
The writing is loose and and funny and weird. Steve jumps in and out of and around genres with an ease that is completely insane to me. Really original and really fun.
KIND OF: the story is about a low level bureaucrat who has spent his life working on an arctic-related government secret. But he's never actually been to the arctic. Until now! There's a mission to the north! And the story of his journey is set against so many other adventurers who traveled to the north, looking for something and often dying in the process.
This book is a good antidote to manly adventure/chosen one stories. Oscar isn't anyone's hero or savior, there's just some stuff happening around him. The stuff happening around him is an intense and gripping thriller, but that's all in the corners of the story, and Oscar could care less.
The writing is loose and and funny and weird. Steve jumps in and out of and around genres with an ease that is completely insane to me. Really original and really fun.
hilary4hartman's review
1.0
This was just awful. First, the editing of this book was atrocious. I've read books and found the occasional typo or extra word, but this book was littered with them, which made it very distracting to read. Second, there are so many elements that are introduced and then never resolved. I understand wanting to leave things open for interpretation by the reader, but I literally have no idea what happened in this book. I'm actually kind of pissed that I spent my time reading this. I'm sure the author has some interesting message to share, but I have no idea what it is.
shimmer's review
I'm not going to review this, because I wrote it so what do I know?
helenmcclory's review
5.0
This novel is the tender story of a marriage - or a Kafkaesque thriller on a journey to the frozen North? It's both. Meta and assured and funny. I was lucky to read the ms of this a while ago, and as I was reading again was happy to remember these unmapped places unfolding again in front of me. A book to read while going about your own journey (commute or baffling secret mission).
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