Valerie
Emily St. John Mandel has a gift for writing about liminal spaces. The spaces between countries, time period, social classes, families, strangers. She creates such a web of deep, complicated, flawed characters and takes you on a time-bending journey through their lives. I hadn't read this before I listened to Sea of Tranquility which is really a continuation and honing of the skills (and several characters) she already had nearly mastered in this novel. While there are elements of magical realism and ghost stories, it's not one of her truly speculative works like SoT or Station Eleven, but it is absolutely worth the read if you enjoyed her writing in those books.
Emily St. John Mandel has a gift for writing about liminal spaces. The spaces between countries, time period, social classes, families, strangers. She creates such a web of deep, complicated, flawed characters and takes you on a time-bending journey through their lives. I hadn't read this before I listened to Sea of Tranquility which is really a continuation and honing of the skills (and several characters) she already had nearly mastered in this novel. While there are elements of magical realism and ghost stories, it's not one of her truly speculative works like SoT or Station Eleven, but it is absolutely worth the read if you enjoyed her writing in those books.