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A review by liketheday
Famous Men Who Never Lived by K. Chess
4.0
This book had been sitting on my shelf for ages until a friend mentioned she loved it and I put it right up on the top of the list, behind all my book club books. Then a hurricane came and I didn't want to read a thinky thing, so I grabbed this instead.
It was a little more thinky than I was expecting, so I didn't devour it all in one sitting, but it was an excellent story to intersperse between hurricane preparation and (thank goodness) hurricane boredom.
I really enjoyed the premise, that three years ago refugees from a parallel New York City showed up in our New York City. This setting gives the author a lot of room to play with nostalgia, ostalgie (a new word I learned!), casual prejudice, identity politics, behavior politics, and the frustrations of life in general. There are a few points in the book where you think it might be about to take a wild turn toward action and adventure, but, spoilers, it maintains a steady pace all the way through. It definitely does not answer all the questions it poses, but it answers enough of them that I think people who are not me (with my love of the ambiguous ending) will still be satisfied.
It was a little more thinky than I was expecting, so I didn't devour it all in one sitting, but it was an excellent story to intersperse between hurricane preparation and (thank goodness) hurricane boredom.
I really enjoyed the premise, that three years ago refugees from a parallel New York City showed up in our New York City. This setting gives the author a lot of room to play with nostalgia, ostalgie (a new word I learned!), casual prejudice, identity politics, behavior politics, and the frustrations of life in general. There are a few points in the book where you think it might be about to take a wild turn toward action and adventure, but, spoilers, it maintains a steady pace all the way through. It definitely does not answer all the questions it poses, but it answers enough of them that I think people who are not me (with my love of the ambiguous ending) will still be satisfied.