A review by darren_cormier
The Visitors by Jessi Jezewska Stevens

challenging dark emotional funny mysterious sad tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

This is a very strange book, which is one of the reasons why I picked it up. There are so many threads and themes being discussed in The Visitors: mental illness, late stage capitalism, Occupy Wall Street, textile art, weaving, poverty, queer longing, garden gnomes, societal collapse--and they all fit neatly together and work. And even while you're reading it, wondering how on earth all of these disparate ideas and threads are going to fit into each other and relate, and even at the end when the pieces of the puzzle end of working and fitting together, you still don't feel satisfied, because there are no good solutions, what you hope for doesn't happen, what you think will happen doesn't happen either (almost a mirror of our own current societal collapse), and no one really gets there comeuppance, there isn't a neat and tidy bow, and you also don't hate or blame anyone else (except maybe The Professor: he kind of sucks). 
It's a strange novel about desperation and longing and confusion and textile weaving and a very well-dressed garden gnome hallucination. And you really do just have to read it. 
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