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A review by rigbees
The Archive of Alternate Endings by Lindsey Drager
5.0
The Archive of Alternate Endings is a work of queer imagination. Not only in this book queer in terms of characters, but it is also queer in how it imagines and re-imagines endings, family and sibling connections. It follows, ostensibly, the story of Hansel and Gretel alongside that of Halley's Comet. The story pulls together different experiences (men dying of AIDS, queer women in turn-of-the-20th-century asylum, the story of Gutenberg's printing press, a satellite, the Earth during an extinction-level event) and brings them together through time and space. It sometimes leans too far towards arch language speaks poetically about the nature of stories or proximity.
The way that the narrative dips in and out of particular timelines works really well. There's a number of times where we focus on one part of a particular timeline, then come back to it from another character's point of view. It presents a whole picture by putting these thumbnails together.
I really loved this book and highly recommend it.
When illness invades a body—of flesh and tissue or of melted rock and crumbled shell and glass and bone—suddenly everything is possible. This is the first step in understanding that everything expires.
The way that the narrative dips in and out of particular timelines works really well. There's a number of times where we focus on one part of a particular timeline, then come back to it from another character's point of view. It presents a whole picture by putting these thumbnails together.
In order to record a tale, something must always be lost. Some things must be left unsaid and disguised. The art of storytelling, his brother said, is all about where and how to leave the voids.
I really loved this book and highly recommend it.