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cicelyvford 's review for:
Severance
by Ling Ma
My questions: Aren't we all drones anyway!? Aren't we all stuck in the monotonous millennial rut!? Hasn't social media & capitalism turned us into non violent zombies?
“The past is a black hole, cut into the present day like a wound, and if you come too close, you can get sucked in. You have to keep moving.”
"Our eyes have become nearsighted with nostalgia, staring at our computer screen. Because being online is equivalent to living in the past. And, while we can agree that the internet has many uses, one of its significant side effects is that we all live too much in the past. But!--here, here, he looked around at all of us inclusively--there is a bright side. This loss of the internet presents an opportunity. We are more free to live in the present and more free to envision our future."
This book took me on a rollercoaster of highs and lows and not in the best way. Because of this, it dropped my hopeful 5 star rating to what it is now.
I liked that Ma wrote this post apocalyptic narrative in such an allegorical way. It was brilliant the way she paralleled fictional zombies and the "zombies" we've become in society; being caught in the cycle of monotony and daily familiarity that we struggle to free ourselves from.
Memories beget memories. Shen Fever being a disease of remembering, the fevered are trapped indefinitely in their memories. But what is the difference between the fevered and us? Because I remember too, I remember perfectly. My memories replay, unprompted, on repeat. And our days, like theirs, continue in an infinite loop. We drive, we sleep, we drive some more.
I'm always a bit anxious as a reader when there is time hopping from past to present and back again. There have been so many authors that have left me utterly confused lol, but Ma did an excellent job of navigating between Candace's childhood experiences with her immigrant parents, the life she knew pre-apocalypse & the life she has become accustomed to post-apocalypse. Candace, the main character, was not a likable. I found her to be stoic, drab and with minimal development, but that might have been the author's intention; to desensitize her to the emotions she once had. I would think in a post apocalyptic society, of this nature, you WOULD go into survival mode and have to abandoned being overly emotional about your circumstances as you once were. It would require you to think swiftly and logically not emotionally.
Candance joined a group of survivors who's leader was an eccentric, controlling, narcissist named Bob. Bob wanted to lead the group to the Facility which actually was an abandoned mall, but on their journey most of the group became fevered and/or died. Thinking about our days in the time of Covid it's hard not to reflect on how capitalism plays an even larger role in adjusting to this new world than it did previously. I feel like Ma included a running theme around capitalism which the mall represented. It was the place the group where the group was taking up residence, but they were surrounded by the reminders of what used to be; the luxuries that defined society, the luxuries that people work so hard to attain that were no more.
Another theme of this story was faith which I found interesting as a Christian. Ma takes the reader into Candace's past growing up with a praying mother who forced her to do the same. She seemed to be caught between a rock and hard place where her beliefs were concerned. In her adult years she was still clinging to the beliefs she was raised on, but also questioning if what she was taught to believe could help her process the new world while suffering with loss of the one she knew.
I was loving this story at first, then it got INCREDIBLY slow. I found the inclusion of all the tasks, connection & experiences she had when traveling to China for work to be a bit disconnected from the story. It was often long and drawn out. In addition, I absolutely hate reading RAUNCHY sex scenes in books. I cringe every time and have often shelved books because of it. It sometimes comes off as shock writing in my opinion and it was too much for my taste. I guess Octavia E. Butler has spoiled me because she mastered writing CLIMACTIC post apocalyptic stories where the new world mundanities were thrilling. I didn't find Severance to be climactic at any point so with all of that my rating steadily declined.
The writing is fantastic! I'd still recommend it, but I just didn't love it as much as I thought I would.
“The past is a black hole, cut into the present day like a wound, and if you come too close, you can get sucked in. You have to keep moving.”
"Our eyes have become nearsighted with nostalgia, staring at our computer screen. Because being online is equivalent to living in the past. And, while we can agree that the internet has many uses, one of its significant side effects is that we all live too much in the past. But!--here, here, he looked around at all of us inclusively--there is a bright side. This loss of the internet presents an opportunity. We are more free to live in the present and more free to envision our future."
This book took me on a rollercoaster of highs and lows and not in the best way. Because of this, it dropped my hopeful 5 star rating to what it is now.
I liked that Ma wrote this post apocalyptic narrative in such an allegorical way. It was brilliant the way she paralleled fictional zombies and the "zombies" we've become in society; being caught in the cycle of monotony and daily familiarity that we struggle to free ourselves from.
Memories beget memories. Shen Fever being a disease of remembering, the fevered are trapped indefinitely in their memories. But what is the difference between the fevered and us? Because I remember too, I remember perfectly. My memories replay, unprompted, on repeat. And our days, like theirs, continue in an infinite loop. We drive, we sleep, we drive some more.
I'm always a bit anxious as a reader when there is time hopping from past to present and back again. There have been so many authors that have left me utterly confused lol, but Ma did an excellent job of navigating between Candace's childhood experiences with her immigrant parents, the life she knew pre-apocalypse & the life she has become accustomed to post-apocalypse. Candace, the main character, was not a likable. I found her to be stoic, drab and with minimal development, but that might have been the author's intention; to desensitize her to the emotions she once had. I would think in a post apocalyptic society, of this nature, you WOULD go into survival mode and have to abandoned being overly emotional about your circumstances as you once were. It would require you to think swiftly and logically not emotionally.
Candance joined a group of survivors who's leader was an eccentric, controlling, narcissist named Bob. Bob wanted to lead the group to the Facility which actually was an abandoned mall, but on their journey most of the group became fevered and/or died. Thinking about our days in the time of Covid it's hard not to reflect on how capitalism plays an even larger role in adjusting to this new world than it did previously. I feel like Ma included a running theme around capitalism which the mall represented. It was the place the group where the group was taking up residence, but they were surrounded by the reminders of what used to be; the luxuries that defined society, the luxuries that people work so hard to attain that were no more.
Another theme of this story was faith which I found interesting as a Christian. Ma takes the reader into Candace's past growing up with a praying mother who forced her to do the same. She seemed to be caught between a rock and hard place where her beliefs were concerned. In her adult years she was still clinging to the beliefs she was raised on, but also questioning if what she was taught to believe could help her process the new world while suffering with loss of the one she knew.
I was loving this story at first, then it got INCREDIBLY slow. I found the inclusion of all the tasks, connection & experiences she had when traveling to China for work to be a bit disconnected from the story. It was often long and drawn out. In addition, I absolutely hate reading RAUNCHY sex scenes in books. I cringe every time and have often shelved books because of it. It sometimes comes off as shock writing in my opinion and it was too much for my taste. I guess Octavia E. Butler has spoiled me because she mastered writing CLIMACTIC post apocalyptic stories where the new world mundanities were thrilling. I didn't find Severance to be climactic at any point so with all of that my rating steadily declined.
The writing is fantastic! I'd still recommend it, but I just didn't love it as much as I thought I would.