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lightreadsA Letter to the Luminous Deep
4/5. Epistolary novel set on a water world where two people begin writing to each other to process their grief about the mutual loss of their siblings, who it turns out had developed their own epistolary relationship, but investigating that raises more questions than it answers.
Lovely. It’s odd to call a book so concerned with grief "cozy," but I think it’s true. This is a book about a strange, dreamy world and some strange, dreamy happenings, and academic politics, and mental illness. But the heart of it is friendship and romance, held in equal importance here. There are two nested relationships – a slow, sweet romance between two very lonely people (at least one of whom is disabled and on the ase spectrum, btw) – and the other a deep and abiding friendship that draws two families together as they try to navigate loss. It’s the sort of book that will make you sigh quietly to yourself when you put it down.
I will say, since I always comment on epistolary, that this is done pretty well. There are a few contrivances, as there always are, but I forgave them easily. E.g., the book includes a written transcript of an important conversation upon first meeting your dear pen pal, because the two characters sat in silence next to each other and wrote notes. But the reason for that was so integral to them – their shyness, one’s mental illness, the circumstances – that it worked. I love epistolary so much, but man, it is not easy.
Content notes: Grief, mental illness – agoraphobia, anxiety, maybe OCD.
4/5. Epistolary novel set on a water world where two people begin writing to each other to process their grief about the mutual loss of their siblings, who it turns out had developed their own epistolary relationship, but investigating that raises more questions than it answers.
Lovely. It’s odd to call a book so concerned with grief "cozy," but I think it’s true. This is a book about a strange, dreamy world and some strange, dreamy happenings, and academic politics, and mental illness. But the heart of it is friendship and romance, held in equal importance here. There are two nested relationships – a slow, sweet romance between two very lonely people (at least one of whom is disabled and on the ase spectrum, btw) – and the other a deep and abiding friendship that draws two families together as they try to navigate loss. It’s the sort of book that will make you sigh quietly to yourself when you put it down.
I will say, since I always comment on epistolary, that this is done pretty well. There are a few contrivances, as there always are, but I forgave them easily. E.g., the book includes a written transcript of an important conversation upon first meeting your dear pen pal, because the two characters sat in silence next to each other and wrote notes. But the reason for that was so integral to them – their shyness, one’s mental illness, the circumstances – that it worked. I love epistolary so much, but man, it is not easy.
Content notes: Grief, mental illness – agoraphobia, anxiety, maybe OCD.
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Date: 2024-08-24 09:33 am (UTC)