This is my first Enger book but will definitely not be my last! I Cheerfully Refuse is a story about survival, family, and the human experience, all experienced through a post-apocalyptic world. The world is not unlike our own, in the not-so-distant future, where literacy is all but forgotten and the American president is an illiterate joke. We follow Rainy on a physically and emotionally demanding journey through his grief in an unforgiving landscape. I’ll be thinking about this story for a long time to come.

This dystopian novel was confusing and depressing to me. I had a hard time connecting with Rainy and keeping track of who/what/when/where.

This was a very well written and engaging story, sort of a travel story that mostly takes place on Lake Superior, considered an interior ocean due to it's storms and currents that has claimed many ships over the years. In the not too distant future, Rainy and Lark are as different as two people can be yet they found each other and are very happy together. Rainy plays bass in a band and Lark sells used books that she travels sometimes great distances to buy from estate sales. Into their lives comes a young man, Kellan, who they allow to rent an upstairs room. Kellan is actually being pursued by a murky police type force for reasons that don't become clear until much later in the story. But the police type force enter the residence and in their over zealous search for Kellan grievously injure Lark. Rainy decides it would be best to leave town on a sailboat that he's only sailed a few times, and he's going to sail it on Lake Superior, a lake that can be dangerous for large boats never mind small sailboats. However he sets off and stops frequently at small inlets/bays to rest, hopscotching his way to a destination that he and Lark had been to previously and that he believes he may be able to see her again (during a previous visit she insisted that the person on a boat was someone who had passed several years ago). Along the way Rainy rescues a young girl (she hides on his boat, and he takes her back initially), Sol is a very resourceful girl and together their journey is both scary and beautiful. I really enjoyed this book and would highly recommend. Thanks to #Netgalley and #Grovepress for the ARC.

I Cheerfully Refuse, by Leif Enger, is a book that caught my eye with its evocative and surreal cover. The blurb on the back makes the book sound transportive, a story about a musician on a rainy lake looking for the meaning of life. Set in a not-too-distant America, I Cheerfully Refuse is a strange dystopian story. I don’t usually go in for dystopian fiction, but Enger has set the time for this tale just around the corner, and it paints a vivid picture that I couldn’t look away from.

This dystopian future doesn’t look like most I have read. People aren’t living in caves or vaults. The Earth wasn’t destroyed by nuclear war. We haven’t regressed back to cavemen. Things are just… shittier, across the board. Infrastructure has basically crumbled to the point where the internet, phone, and satellite are only used by a privileged few. But, you can still get more commodities, it just takes a lot longer as trade has been reduced to a glacial pace even if manufacturing is still possible. Medicine, engineering, and science are still going relatively strong, but almost all trades need to be localized with redundancy because most towns and cities can only reach the next town over if they need something. It is unclear what the government is or if it is functional, but people still go about their lives as best they can.

Against this strange but familiar backdrop, we have Rainy, a tall, strong, and brooding protagonist who plays the base and is just trying to get by. He lives with his bookseller girlfriend on the coast of Lake Superior and tries to take each day one at a time. When the powerful elite invade Rainy’s town looking for something and it results in the death of the girlfriend, he takes to the lake on a sailboat he has been restoring to see what else the world might have to offer. Thus begins a powerful tale of reflection and introspection.

I Cheerfully Refuse is a beautifully written book with some excellent messaging that doesn’t actually have a ton going on plot-wise under the hood. If you are looking for an exciting adventure where a lot of things happen, this is not going to be your champion. If you are looking for a moody piece about the nature of man and an eyes-wide-open view of what our world might look like in 50 years, then this book is one of a kind. The prose is wonderful, with most passages reading like poetry that conveys a deep love of people, Lake Superior, and life. Despite the setting feeling just an overall degraded version of our current reality it was easy to imagine finding love and happiness in this world despite all the problems. Enger can easily write about nothing and compel you to sit and listen.

The main personal problem I have with I Cheerfully Refuse is that despite its gripping atmosphere and my sky-high investment, the story never feels like it goes anywhere for me. We pick up a few plotlines throughout the book, but they come and go with little fanfare or impact. The finale in particular felt very empty to me, and I left the book wondering if the entire point was simply to paint some beautiful settings. Yet, if that was the case why open the door to a brilliant and unexplored future for humanity and then do nothing with it? What are Enger’s thoughts on the plan forward other than “love will always persist”? Sure, that’s a nice message and I am sure there is more that I simply missed going on under the surface. At the same time, the book didn’t inspire me to look more closely and dig for additional meaning. It felt like it ran out of steam and left me wondering what the point of its gorgeous narrative was.

Enger’s I Cheerfully Refuse is beautiful at its core, but I wish it had a little more presence and a little less ephemerality. I enjoyed my time with the book but I would only recommend it to a very specific kind of reader and I would be unsurprised to hear that others didn’t like it at all. If nothing else, it has the most interesting dystopia I have read in a long time, and Enger has a powerful imagination and poetic prose that makes any story feel like stepping up to a beautiful painting.

Rating: I Cheerfully Refuse – 6.5/10

In 2005 I was living and teaching English in China. Back then, swapping books with other teachers was the only way to get books in English, and we would pretty much read anything we got our hands on. This is how I first discovered Enger. I read Peace Like a River and fell madly in love. Enger tends to put several years in between his books, the last one being released in 2018, so I was very excited to read Cheerfully. What can I say? I loved this so much. It is a story of a journey, as Enger's books usually are, and abouot the family we find when all others are lost. Set in a not so distant apocalyptic future, Enger manages to tell the story while barely mentioning what caused the fate of the world, because what really matters in this and any story is the people. There is no happy ending, only an acceptance of the ending that there is. Enger is one of the rare writers who makes you care more about the characters than any of the events taking place, and he does so with an eloquent writing style that is unmatched by any modern author. I love love love love this book!

5 hearty and heartful stars
“The lake was dark and flat. It was a blackboard to the end of sight, and any story might be written on its surface.”

Leif Enger is an experienced writer, whose books I have relished. His scene setting is descriptive, captivating all the senses, yet sparse. “The clean hot water, the feast, the wine, now the blue night sky, saturated and shivering with stars.” I was intrigued by the unique characters in I Cheerfully Refuse from the start. I also enjoy Enger’s subtle sense of humor.

Set in the future, Lake Superior plays a major role in the story. “ Superior was on par with any water on Earth for flat-out menace. A three-hundred-mile fetch of malevolent spirit.” Human characters range from the good, the kid, the kind, the truly evil.

“Buttered toast in a sunlit kitchen, a stand of corn and squash out back, a coming reality where sorrow did not draw and quarter them every waking dawn. Is it so much to ask? A three-chord song, a common life? Could we all have that, someday?”

Great characters, fantastic writing, excellent pacing, epic adventure! Thank you, Leif Enger. Thanks also to Netgalley and the publisher for providing an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Leif Enger is one of my favorite authors, and much of the prose in this book was thoroughly satisfying. The plot, however, unfortunately seemed unnecessarily sad, dark and convoluted.

However, despite the drawbacks, this story is still clever and hopeful enough to make it worth the read. The quality of the author’s writing is superb, so if you can tolerate some dark fiction, I highly recommend I Cheerfully Refuse.

I CHEERFULLY REFUSE takes place in a not so distant future when reading and books have fallen out of fashion and a proudly illiterate president can be elected. The world has suffered from our hands, and yet there can still be pockets of goodness. Rainy is a musician married to Lark, a used bookseller, and they've carved out for themselves a happy existence. 

We read that our protagonist "began watching everyone I met for secret greatness," and that remains a strong theme throughout. Characters are nuanced and contain multitudes. A journey must be overtaken in grief and a pursuit adds to the tension. Yet Rainy can't turn his back on those who need help and, in so doing, can find kindred spirits willing to lend aid.

For those familiar with his earlier works, there is a comfort to be found in the familiar structure, and I welcomed the hope, and even some magic, found in these pages. 

(I received a digital ARC from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for my honest review.)

Enger is always a very interesting writer and I love both Peace Like a River and So Brave Young and Handsome back when they were first released. This book, for me, is in the same category as Virgil Wander. They are good, but not nearly as up to par to his first two.

Thank you to NetGalley and Grove Press for sending me this arc and apologies for the delay!

3.5 ⭐️

I Cheerfully Refuse is a very beautiful novel. At first I thought it was a book where the characters were animals, sometimes bird like, sometimes bear like- all harmonious in their lifestyle and all kind to each other.

Then I thought it was a murder mystery. A take of a man trying to figure out who killed someone dear to him, all the while on the run from the law.

What it ended up being? I’m not quite sure. And that isn’t necessarily a bad thing. It was beautifully written and Rainy’s character won me over with his ability keep going as well as his kindness and humour. I loved the thrill of the chase, but also the quiet moments where the discussions of the soul were intricately passed between Rainy, the author and the reader.

Overall, it was a lovely novel. I enjoyed it a lot. And I want to see now what else Leif has in store ❤️

This is my second Leif Enger book and his writing strikes me as so sincere in a time of such contrivance.
The plot of choosing to keep living in the face of natural disaster, personal loss, government corruption, corporate greed, and overall societal depression is uncomfortably relevant and beautifully hopeful.

In "I Cheerfully Refuse," the world has gone to hell in a handbasket. It's the future. Climate is wild, people are handing on to tiny scraps of normalcy, although it's been so long since things were normal that the ideas are skewed. Most people are illiterate, living like it's the 18th century instead of whatever century it is. Rainey and Lark live on the edge of Lake Superior in a settlement where she runs a bookstore of volumes she has scrounged or traded. Rainey plays the bass in a popular band which brings most of the population together on Saturday nights. A scroungy young man appears with a few books to trade, including a book Lark has been looking for for decades, a novel by a mysterious author called "I Cheerfully Refuse." The young man becomes part of their lives until a strange bookbuyer comes to town and Rainey finds himself in a boat looking for refuge in other settlements. He has to survive the weather, these eerie leftover towns, and stay away from large ships that scoop people up to use for experiments.

This is a drear dystopian novel where people have just given up. It's also my first Leif Enger novel, and I really fell for his wholehearted characters. He's created a setting that is so sad, yet there are still people who can seize bits of joy. I never doubted that I would finish "I Cheerfully Refuse". but at times it wasn't easy. Fortunately, Rainey if a lovely character, a bear of a guy with a big heart, humor and courage. Watching him navigate this new world with just his wits and decency is a lesson learned.

Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for a digital review copy of this novel. All opinions are my own.

Leif Enger is one of those rare authors who is able to bring me to tears. I honestly don't have many words apart from to say that I Cheerfully Refuse is an essential, timely, and life-affirming beacon of joy, hope, and stubborn refusal to give into despair. Lark, Rainey, Evelyn, Girard, and Sol became family as I read, wept, and hoped with them. Enger's Peace Like a River is my favorite novel of all time, I Cheerfully Refuse sits nicely on my bookshelf beside it.

Leif Enger's latest novel, I Cheerfully Refuse, is a beautifully written tale of Rainy, a weathered man in a dystopian future who, after a personal tragedy, sets sail on Lake Superior in search of his wife's spirit. This novel reminded me in many ways of Emily St. John Mandel's Station Eleven, but Enger's writing was far more poetic, lyrical, and masterful.

I struggled a bit with the pacing after the main tragedy occurred, and Enger delved into the chapters detailing Rainy's life on Lake Superior as he bounced from harbor town to harbor town. Lake Superior, indeed, was its own character through Enger's crafty words, but the lake's relentless storms and mystery wore on me until the part in the novel where Rainy met the young girl, Sol. After Sol was introduced, then the action of this novel took off, and the greater urgency of this story held my attention as I blitzed through to the end.

I have read all of Enger's novels, and although Peace Like A River remains my favorite of his works, this new tale is a close second.

Many thanks to Grove Press and NetGalley for the opportunity to read an ARC of this book.

4.25 stars

I loved this book. Leif Enger knows the Midwest well, and his characters evoked all of the idiosyncrasies of that part of our nation. The “near future” setting was done well, with many veiled references to how it could be today. This novel is about a journey in many ways. The prison boat was an interesting concept and a divisive one. I could have read the main character’s journey for another whole book.

I really enjoyed this story. The writing was beautiful and conversational in the best way. I was gripped by the narrative. Though I read some of the ebook itself, I did listen to the last three quarters of the book as an audiobook when it was released a few weeks ago. I really enjoyed the narrator’s voice, and highly recommend it. I myself from very picky about narrators. He did an excellent job and fit the first-person narration perfectly. I received an advanced reader copy of this book from the publisher, but all the opinions here are my own.

Some fascinating stuff here. Really creative. It's being called sci-fi or dytopian, the latter of which might work. I'm not sure that magical realism doesn't do it better justice. The world Enger narrates is enchanted, and that's part of what draws me to his writing. The world is also deeply not-right, and encounters with evil feature in most of his work too.

I'm particularly fascinated by "Willow," the drug that people are using to end their lives. With MAID in Canada, we are not far off from such a reality. It's a grim reality of our our making, which is set in relief by the power, beauty, and danger of the natural world that Rainy encounters as he sails across Lake Superior.

I live in the land of Leif Enger, so automatically requested this title as I knew there would be local interest. I did not realize all of the subjects this would be, including distopia, fantasy and literary fiction. Ultimately, I think Enger is a good writer but this was absolutely not for me. I am also not sure if fans of Peace Like a River will enjoy it. I guess I would advise caution if you are just reading it as a fan of the author.

This is a wonderful book that will stay with you a long time after you finish it. You can't help loving the main characters. They are sympathetic and relatable. The story grabs you. This is my favorite Lief Enger book. The writing is just beautiful. Thank you Grove Atlantic and Net Galley for giving me an advanced copy.

I CHEERFULLY REFUSE by Leif Enger has a beautiful, eye-catching cover which reflects the many layers involved in this latest story from an award-winning author (Peace Like a River and Virgil Wander). The story centers on Rainy (the narrator) and his wife Lark who live on Lake Superior in a post-apocalyptic society compared by another reviewer to The Road or Station Eleven. Lark, however, sounds like someone we would all want to know – she gets excited about old books, including mysteries and "the complete McGee." Plus, Rainy says, "Chancing a single glance at her green eyes, I got an impression of curiosity and wit and maybe a little mockery zipping around back there like fireflies." Their new boarder, Kellan, attracts some dangerous people and Rainy eventually departs in a sailboat, travelling amongst the local islands in search of an inner peace. Enger deftly explores grief, loneliness, and the restorative power of kindness and nature’s beauty. His writing is so amazing: "The lake was dark and flat. It was a blackboard to the end of sight, and any story might be written on its surface." I CHEERFULLY REFUSE received a starred review from Publishers Weekly ("This captivating narrative brims with hope."). Kirkus references its "staggeringly tough times" and "spirit of whimsy that keeps hope flickering even in times of darkest despair."