This is a medium paced climfii/mystery/fantasy novel about displacement from climate change, and political upheaval from war.
Obreht’s beautiful writing makes a disconnected character driven story about a displaced teen trying to find herself through a mysterious past and an even more mysterious future an engaging read.
Perfect for bookclub discussions as there are multiple topics to discuss including displacement and war, climate changes, family relationships and ancient folktales,
If you enjoyed Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel or Khan Shubnum’s The Djinn Waits a Hundred Years then you will enjoy this book.
Thank you NetGalley and the publisher for a chance to read this advance readers copy.

Thank you, NetGalley and Penguin Random House, for my free digital copy for review.

"The Morningside" by Tea Obreht presents a compelling narrative set in a dystopian and post-apocalyptic environment. The story centers around Silvia (Sil), a resilient young girl, and her mother, who undergo displacement and are relocated to the Morningside, an old luxury tower situated in a flood-prone area.

The characters are intricately intertwined, contributing to the rich tapestry of themes and experiences within the dystopian backdrop. Notably, the complex relationship between Silvia and her mother takes center stage, portraying a closeness tempered by the mother's reluctance to address questions about their shared history and past. This dynamic unfolds as a poignant exploration of love, resentment, and the quest for understanding.

Silvia grapples with curiosity, loneliness, and the complexities of growing up amid uncertainty and change. The narrative effectively captures her quest to uncover her origins and family history, reflecting the theme of self-discovery and the search for personal identity.

While the novel demands close attention due to its rapid scene transitions and non-linear storytelling, it enriches the reading experience by infusing the narrative with mystery, unpredictability, and emotional resonance.

"The Morningside" offers a thought-provoking exploration of themes such as identity, origins, climate change, and displacement, providing readers with a compelling and immersive reading experience.

Thank you to NetGalley and Random House Publishers for the e-ARC in exchange for an honest review.

The Morningside follows an eleven year old girl refugee of a dystopian war and world. Because of a child's viewpoint, the scope is limited to what she sees, believes, and understands. There were lulls in the story that were just a child/children hiding and spying. It reminds me of a grown-up edition of Harriet the Spy. I would have enjoyed seeing and understanding more about the world, but I understand the message the author was trying to express. Overall, I enjoyed reading this book.

11-year-old Sylvia and her mom go to live with her aunt Bazeel and a fancy abandon apartment in a re-population program hoping that if they move to the area others will come. Except her mother young Sylvia has never met another member of her family and when she finds her aunt more outgoing and quicker to tell Sylvia things about her family she thinks it may be OK The new place still be a live however also has its secrets and since she spends most of her time alone it is left up to her to figure out the world around her. Let me just say head this been a children’s book or even a young adult book it may have been a bit better but it took me forever to read this book and a lot of times when I put it down I really didn’t want to pick it back up. This book is that in a world where the environment is reaping payback with an ever growing ocean but this is just a minor point to the book an a plot point I found pointless. This book could’ve been set an a two bedroom house or an apartment building in the city today and I don’t see how the narrative would’ve went any other way. It really look like a book I was going to love but sadly I did not. Because I loved the Tigers wife and have In Land on my TBR list. I couldn’t wait to read this and now I know In Land has a 50-50 chance of being great. I still appreciate being given this book by Net Galley and the publisher please forgive any mistakes as I am blind and dictate my review.

"The Morningside" by Téa Obreht is a moving dystopian novel set in a future where Silvia, a young girl, and her mother relocate to a new city on an island as part of a Repopulation Program. They move into a high-rise building overseen by Silvia's Aunt Ena, the superintendent. Unable to attend school, Silvia spends her days exploring the building and observing its inhabitants, including a mysterious wealthy woman in the penthouse.

Enamored by the woman's presence, Silvia becomes convinced that there is something mythical about her. With the help of her friend Mila and a local man named May, Silvia embarks on a quest to uncover the truth, despite her mother's warnings to keep a low profile.

"The Morningside" explores themes of family history, seeking truth, and the complexities of mother-daughter relationships. Obreht's imaginative storytelling and vivid world-building make for an engaging read, and the only thing that didn’t work for me was that the pacing felt uneven at times. Overall, I recommend "The Morningside" to anyone who enjoys dystopian fiction with mystical elements or magical realism.

I really, really wanted to dig into this and love it but after many attempts I have to admit it just does not grab my attention. I love the little bits of world building and references to a setting that sounds vaguely dystopian, but they are too few and far between to keep me engaged. Wish it was faster paced and more overt.

Emotionally wrecked and filled with adoration for this odd gem of a novel. It grabbed me, took me by surprise and never let me go. Silvia is one of my favorite MC’s in a long while. Her search for meaning and understanding in her history was so beautifully woven with Balkan folklore. I have Inland on my shelf, guess it’s time to pick it up.

I believe that this book should be reclassified as Young Adult and then my review would be much more favorable. As it is now I was disappointed and uninterested in the story and plot. I've reached a saturation level on the post-apocalyptic settings that so many novels seem to embrace now. Been there, done that. Worse though is that I don't see that it was necessary for the story, it added nothing to the plot that any contemporary setting couldn't achieve.
Tea Obreht's writing and prose is beautiful as always. If you enjoy just reading a writer who is a master of her craft then give The Morningside a try, but the story left me bored and cold. I felt no attachment to the characters, they were flat and unremarkable except for one character, May, who had a little depth but could have been developed much further.

I received an ARC of this novel from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

A refuge mother and daughter find themselves caretakers of a once ornate apartment building. There are hidden secrets behind the doors of the residents.

⭐️: 3.5/5

In the not so distant future, Silvia and her mother are expelled from their home and eventually settle at the Morningside, a crumbling, luxury residence where Silvia’s aunt Eva works as the superintendent. Silvia knows almost nothing about her previous life, as her mother will not speak of it, so she drinks in Ena’s magical stories and becomes obsessed with a mysterious older woman and her three dogs. As she tries to find out the woman’s secrets, she unknowingly puts everything else she knows in jeopardy.

I was honestly pretty confused about this book throughout the majority of it. I was definitely…interested? But I couldn’t figure out if it was going to have a plot, or was more of a vibe. It did end up having a plot, but still was not exactly what I expected, based on the blurb I read about this one. I couldn’t figure out for the longest time what genre this book was either, which kept me from being able to classify it in my head and form an opinion on it. The most interesting part of this one was the speculative nature of the near-future elements. The reality of the decline of our planet is brought into stark relief in this one, and the repercussions of the necessary migration that would occur from coastal areas felt really real. I found the characters a little unbearable in this one, since none were particularly likable or even unlikable in an interesting way. The choice to have most of this book from a very young Silvia’s POV was interesting, since she is so naive and just…young. This was a pretty short book, and thus a pretty quick read, and the themes were interesting enough that I’d still recommend this one, even if it was a little…odd.

Thank you to @netgalley and @randomhouse for this free eARC!!

3.5 to 4 stars

"The Morningside" is a captivating coming-of-age tale amidst the backdrop of a not-so-distant, dystopian future. At its core, is the universal quest to find belonging.

Sil and her mother, displaced by the ravages of war and climate change, find refuge in Island City through the Repopulation efforts. Their residence in the enigmatic Morningside, overseen by Sil's Aunt Ena, becomes a catalyst for discovery. Through Ena's revelations about their past and the rich tapestry of folklore from their homeland, Sil begins to unearth her identity and forge connections long yearned for.

Inventive and imaginative, Sil drives the narrative finding herself on an adventure as she straddles the world she sees and the one that lies just beneath looking for connection and understanding that could jeopardize her everything she holds dear.

"The Morningside" is a testament to the power of storytelling, offering readers an inventive and compelling exploration of identity, community, and the sacrifices demanded by the pursuit of truth.

Thank you NetGalley Tea Obreht and Random House Publishing Group for an advanced e-copy of this book. Grab your copy March 19th, 2024!

3.5/5 stars

The Morningside is woven full of so many interesting themes. Magic, folklore, dystopia, cli-fi and speculative future.. At some points I feel there was too much going on, but at the end of the day the author did a nice job tying it all together.

Sil is a bright young girl, who alongside her mom are displaced from their far-away home. They are selected to be part of the resettlement program and placed to live in a very old past-its-prime luxury tower called the Morningside. The area is flood prone and from its description and its resident characters feels very much like Manhattan. My favorite description of many of the Morningside’s residents as “janglers,” those who wear too much of their jewelry at once, per Sil’s aunt. I’m sure we can all picture this type!

Sil can’t get into school immediately, so she ends up helping her Mom with her duties as the building’s Superintendent and finding what’s probably best described as mischief along the way. She beats herself up over much of it, too. I found her constant guilt/self-punishment to be a bit much and mildly annoying.. But naturally, this was part of her core character.

In addition to being the building’s superintendent, Sil’s mom also takes work as a salvage diver, as this occupation is in demand as sea levels have claimed so much real estate. It’s a risky decision and it leads to a whole other set of challenges for the family.

All of this carries on when Sil is turning into a young woman, befriends a girl of a sketchy-feeling family upstairs and grows utterly obsessed with a mysterious woman who lives in the penthouse who keeps a meticulous schedule of walking her very large dogs every night.

The book had some notable highlights of humor, suspense and sadness. These factors helped develop the characters and helped me feel some kind of connection with the characters.

Pros:
Good world building and decent character development. The author does a nice job of taking a mashup of genres/themes and folding them into a reasonably interesting story. My favorite character is a man in the book named May. He becomes friends with Sil and calls her “Snoopy.” Snoopy of course because he’s calling her out on her mischief. The way Obreht describes him calling her that made me snicker. I found this supporting character’s story to be one of the most interesting in the novel. If he got his own book, I’d definitely read it.

Cons:
I feel like the story really didn’t get semi-interesting until about 30% through. The last half - third of the book is the best part. If there had been more to hold my interest in the first part of the book, I would have rated it higher.

I wouldn’t put this one at the top of your TBR stack, but if you’re into cli-fi, speculative future and slightly supernatural characters, it might be a good fit for you.

Thank you Netgalley, Téa Obreht and Random House for the opportunity to read this book.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for an opportunity to listen to read this book in exchange for a review. All opinions are my own.
Sweet dreamy story told from the POV of a Silvia, a 10 year old girl. Her world like our own ( only the cities names have changed) has been mostly flooded for a generation. The parts that didn’t flood burn with uncontrollable wildfires. Refugees move from place to place to escape a huge genocidal war that took place decades ago. The world waits for the water to recede and things to go back the way they were. The suffering of the refugees is glossed over in the mind of Silvia, her mother having shielded her from much of it.
The story begins with Silvia and her mother arriving at the “ Morningside” a once luxurious apartment building as part of a government resettlement project. Silvia meets her aunt Ena who is acting as the building’s maintenance person. Soon Ena is spinning tales of the old country and magic, something her pragmatic mother refused to discuss. Silvia is completely enchanted. Much of the story takes place over a few months and is centered on Silvia spying on the mysterious wealthy recluse in the penthouse apartment who her aunt claims is a ‘ Vila’ aka a witch. The Vila- Betzi Duras has three massive dogs that Silvia and her aunt think are actually enchanted men. Silvia is determined to get proof. The story becomes more complex when a new resident Silvia’s age “ Mila” moves into the apartment building. They become “ Frenemys”. Mila having been raised in privilege, being much bolder than the cautious Silvia.

I enjoyed the story, and the POV, but found the pace remained languid, even when there should have been more of a sense of urgency among the characters. Satisfying conclusion .

Thank you to @Random and #NetGalley for the digital ARC of #TheMorningside. The opinions expressed here are entirely my own.

In the near future, climate change has caused massive flooding and people are being displaced from their homes and countries. Forced to continually migrate, Silvia and her mother end up in Island City at The Morningside, a crumbling "luxury" apartment where Silvia's aunt is the super. Silvia spends her days helping her aunt take care of the building and learning about her homeland - which she doesn't remember and her mother won't talk about. The stories feed Silvia's imagination and she's determined to uncover the secrets of The Morningside.

At its heart, this is a mother/daughter story and what you do to protect the ones you love. It's also climate change fiction with a little magical realism. Overall, an interesting story with some poignant moments.

This book has a ton of hype, but it just wasn’t for me. Set in a post-apocalyptic world, it follows a young girl and her mother as they move into a fancy apartment building as its caretakers.

The world-building was great, but I never connected to the characters. Most of the story is told through the eyes of an 11-year-old which is just too young for me to really get a handle on and I wasn’t sure what to make of the allusions to magic - is it supposed to be real or a child’s explanation for what happens?

The pacing also hurt it - the last 30 pages or so were interesting and I wish that had been the halfway point, rather than the end.

I liked the world and the writing and the characters. Other than some pacing issues, this book was really good.

Thank you to NetGalley and Random House Publishers for the digital advanced reader copy of this book.

There was so much I really liked about this world and story. Imagine a city covered in water, subject to the tides, people living in high rise apartment buildings turning in ration cards for disconnected and random ingredients and household items. Imagine the people who have lived in this city since before the flooding and imagine those who are immigrating in with the promise of permanent housing in the future. Everyone thinks things will get better, but there’s no true evidence to back them. This is the world that Silvia and her mother move to as part of the Repopulation program. Moving into The Morningside with Silvia’s aunt, Ena, pre-teen Sil is immersed into a new world that is nearly as unstable as her life before now. Ena tells Silvia stories of their homeland, stories her mother had withheld.

I appreciated the beautiful writing, as I did with the author’s prior work, The Tiger’s Wife. I thought the mixture of a near-future world mixed with Balkan folklore, magical realism, and science fiction was very interesting. The story was slow and mysterious and the worldbuilding was thorough while staying accessible. My struggle was that some of the storylines seemed disconnected. I’m lately recognizing in myself a slight prejudice against non-linear storytelling, so perhaps my sense of disjointedness is my own bias.

I also walked away wondering what the book was really about. Is it about the legacies we leave? Mothers and daughters? The stories we tell ourselves and the ways we survive in changing tides? The questions, who am I, where do I come from, and who will I be? Perhaps it was about a little of all of these.

The bottom line: I liked this one, but struggled a little with knowing what it was really “about.”

— NOTES —
Genres: speculative, dystopian
POV: first-person, singular
Content: past war, refugee experience, genocide

— MY RATING CONSIDERATIONS —
(all out of 5)
Pace: 4
Enjoyment: 4.5
Craft: 4
My Gut Feeling: 4
Total Stars: 4.125

I'm not quite sure how I feel about this book. I suppose I liked it, as I never really wanted to put it down, but I feel like my interest was more "where is Téa Obreht going here?" rather than "what is going to happen to these characters next?"

The story is very hazy. It's set in a fictional setting (or, a setting with a fictional gloss on it; the central city is plausibly New York, and several other locations named are clearly patterned on Italy and a number of Balkan countries), with some sort of near-future ecological crisis element going on -- much talk is given to salvage diving in flooded areas, which also provides one of the few real dramatic engines of the plot <spoiler>when the main character's mother is trapped in a building while salvage diving</spoiler>. It's not totally clear why Obreht chooses to do this, although it does lead to some interesting touches, such as the naming of the main character's native tongue as "Ours" rather than a national name, and the possibility of inventing unexpected encounters with other immigrants from Back Home who may have been on the opposite side of ethnic conflict without having to hold yourself to real-world details of that conflict.

It certainly helps with the fairy-tale quality of the story. Using a fictionalized setting means that it's not so jarring to have a supposedly-future timeline in which the day-to-day details of people's lives seem awfully similar, technologically speaking, to the late 90s or so -- not-so-coincidentally when Obreht herself immigrated to the U.S., though I have no information about how else her childhood does or does not map to the experience here. One might even consider this book as a sort of children's story, akin to Harriet the Spy with a fairy-tale spin, as most of the plot centers around the main character trying to figure out if her upstairs neighbor is some kind of folkloric witch-type figure.

All in all, I never really found that much to grab on to. It's interesting, but not engrossing.

The thing that really struck me the most about this book was that the narrator was Sylvia who is an 11-year-old, who is trying to get the answers to where she is from and ultimately who she is. Like so many family Sylvia‘s family has hidden difficult truths from her and it’s only as she develops new friendships and connections in this strange dystopian world filled with magic she had never seen before. Only as she begins to open her eyes and see what she didn’t see before can she really start to understand who she is and who she has come from.

Gentle, slow-burn, and genre-blending, The Morningside is a coming-of-age story that examines heritage and refuge.

This is a book about a child, or a child on the brink of teenage-hood, but it is no less compelling. In truth, I don’t gravitate towards books about children, but this book is one of those that reminds you of both the good and bad about what it was like when you were a kid and you still clung to beliefs in things like magic. This story, as an overarching concept, is about a young girl in a tenuous and volatile situation using the only tool she has - her family’s folklore - to make connections and understand the world around her. She relies on superstitions and rituals as a way to keep her mother safe when she (deep down) knows she has no ability to, and it’s heartbreaking and understandable.

The genre is very interesting. I would call this, above all else, a literary fiction. It’s set in a different world than ours, but one that is so similar it sometimes makes you wonder if she is talking about a real place. In my view, it’s clearly an allegory, not a fantasy or based in the real world. Then again, this book is vague enough that you could read it as being a real place, which is part of its charm.

The language of the book is quite lit fic at times, but I found it compelling. I loved the lyrical cast to the language, and while it might be flighty for some, I thought it was beautiful.

The story is interesting because it’s one of those that carries a lingering dread of something bad happening, but you also get the feeling the book isn’t going to traumatize you, that it’s instead transporting you to somewhere else. The book even confirms for us near the start that this is not a story of a girl being abused or a predator lying in wait for a neglected child but a story of loners coming together to help one another. I thought the way the child’s goal of spying on the seemingly magical older lady in her apartment fueled the plot (but not the events that transpired around this and in her life) was expertly done. Because Silvia is really just a girl, the spying on the older lady is her way of taking agency over her life, her way of figuring out something. It’s also her distraction.

The book also has a quirky cast of characters, such as the aunt. The relationship between mother and daughter was also one we’ve kind of seen before, but it’s also one that I think is relatable to many readers. I used to avoid these until I had my own daughters, in truth, but now I find them emotionally rewarding.

The novel also brings up themes relevant to today, such as climate, war, refugees, the power and wildfire-like spread of social shaming, and poverty. I honestly wasn’t sure what to expect when I requested it but I’m really glad I did. I honestly can’t say anything bad about it. I thought it was a lovely, poignant, beautifully told story.