A review by mdpenguin
Central Station by Lavie Tidhar

medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

I didn't realize that this was a collection of short stories, so at first I was having a hard time getting into it because the expected central plot never materialized. Once I figured it out, though, I liked it a lot. The stories do work incredibly well together and do build into a strong portrait of several people tied together and the city/world they live in. It also tied into a few other of Tidhar's books that I've read in a way that wasn't overbearing but made it feel a little more familiar and connected. Overall, it read like a cross between Philip K. Dick and Bruno Schulz, with writing better than the former but not to the level of the latter. Like Dick we got a gritty but functional world, with hints of unreality and a focus on the outcasts. Like Schulz we got a rather surreal world painted for us from the perspective of a series of family-oriented stories. Overall, I really liked it and might pick it up again sometime later to give the first few stories the attention they deserve.