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A review by meggeorge
Sea of Tranquility by Emily St. John Mandel
4.0
3.8 stars
This book was nice. It was just a nice time. It gave me a similar feeling to Piranesi, to a much lesser degree. That sort of benign acceptance that bad things might happen to us, but that's just as much a part of life as the good things and we can keep going.
I loved the way the separate plot threads wove together, though as with any multi-POV story, I had my favourites. I thought it was a good length. I really respect an author who knows their story is not meant to be a 500 page brick, no matter what publishers and agents say.
The problems I had were really contained to one section, and that was Olive's chapters. Unfortunately, I found this overly repetitive, though I realise that was meant to somewhat demonstrate the tedium of her job and make going home that much more appealing. Her narrative went in circles a lot and made her seem like a very simple character. Every thought she had was about her daughter, being scared of the pandemic, or being indignant at some misogynistic remark. And I don't mean that these things don't deserve to be explored in a book, it just was not my taste.
All in all, a great book if you want something existential, but in a comforting way.
This book was nice. It was just a nice time. It gave me a similar feeling to Piranesi, to a much lesser degree. That sort of benign acceptance that bad things might happen to us, but that's just as much a part of life as the good things and we can keep going.
I loved the way the separate plot threads wove together, though as with any multi-POV story, I had my favourites. I thought it was a good length. I really respect an author who knows their story is not meant to be a 500 page brick, no matter what publishers and agents say.
The problems I had were really contained to one section, and that was Olive's chapters. Unfortunately, I found this overly repetitive, though I realise that was meant to somewhat demonstrate the tedium of her job and make going home that much more appealing. Her narrative went in circles a lot and made her seem like a very simple character. Every thought she had was about her daughter, being scared of the pandemic, or being indignant at some misogynistic remark. And I don't mean that these things don't deserve to be explored in a book, it just was not my taste.
All in all, a great book if you want something existential, but in a comforting way.