Jonathan Abernathy You Are Kind

This was an easy-enough read that also had some interesting perspective and commentary on self-confidence, one's need for reassurance, and the nature of being highly sensitive to people, things, and your own emotions. The backdrop for this to play out in a story about deliberately effecting people's dreams worked really well and even most of the reveals were well timed and felt earned. The writing also deserves a lot of kudos, as it would've been very easy (and even common) for this type of narrative, world-building, and dynamic to lose the reader. Especially with a significant portion of the novel taking place in a dreamworld.

Jonathan Abernathy is unhappy. He is lonely and broke and lacking in any particular skill and tired of life (even though he sleeps 10 hours a night). He is presented with a very specific job opportunity. This does not happen the way job opportunities normally present themselves. No, Jonathan Abernathy is visited in a dream, not by God but by serious looking people in suits. And he is offered a way out of his misery.

While not in any direct way a horror novel, the almost post-apocalyptic capitalism that forms the basic framework for Earth anno Jonathan Abernathy You Are Kind is quite the horror. Abernathy's new job is to audit people's dreams, and suggest ways to improve them - to make them happier in order to improve their work performance. Actively unhappy people don't make as much money as people who are okay.

The entire book feels a little like a dream. Time passes slowly, sometimes, and then months will pass. The story itself takes quite a while to pick up pace, to start to grasp the way everything ties together in the end. Even though I really like how intentively stylised the writing was - and it fits the themes and settings of the book really well - it also kept me at a slight distance at all times. Jonathan Abernathy's head is not a kind place to be - it's heavy and sad and filled with as much longing as inertia. Jonathan Abernathy is kind. Or at least he tries to be.

I received a free ARC from Netgalley & the publisher in exchange for an honest review.