A review by katiecat22
Severance by Ling Ma

3.75

I loved her writing, and this reminded me a lot of Station Eleven. It is told in alternating chapters of Candace’s flashbacks to leaving China as a young girl and growing up in the U.S., and a lot of the narrative is spent on her time in New York as a young adult. The other half of the chapters follow Candace and a band of characters surviving to leave NY and head to Chicago to hide out from the fever. I think I would have enjoyed this more had I not read Station Eleven or read it before 2020, but I definitely want to read her next novel. The parts of the story about Candace’s relationship with her mother reminded me a bit of Transcendent Kingdom as well, very heartbreaking. There is a lot said here about assimilation and the “American dream,” too.
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