This is an amazing read that drifts between a nearish future company town dystopia where books are forbidden and they attempt to make everyone possible work at the fish canning factory, a near past detail about a young author who ends up becoming involved in the struggle around the town, and the standoff that eventually ends up happening between the town and workers and the company itself. It's a hell of a journey, and deftly plotted. Definitely worth picking up when it comes out in February.

This book and I never quite gelled. It is well-written and I can appreciate that it comes from an acclaimed Latin American writer, but plot points and characters came across as more random than anything else to me. For example, for most of the book, one of the main characters has a full-size Bengal tiger as a pet. No real reason, just because. There is also a fierce, at times, round up and burning of books, but the effort is mostly a side note. I get it…the world of the novel is dystopian and times are tough and weird in lots of ways. It’s just that these ways felt random and didn’t contribute to a strong story arc in my opinion. Having finished the book 5 days or so ago, I already find it hard to remember what it was about.

Thanks to NetGalley and Farrar, Straus and Giroux for letting me read an advance copy of this book.

While the writing itself was mostly captivating, the tangents the story went on made me wonder how everything was supposed to come together and why I was still reading this book. By the end it all formed a cohesive and coherent whole but it took a bit to get there.

This felt very mad max to me? And it was weird… but good weird. Writing is so good. Overall I really liked this one! The cover would 100% grab my eye at the bookshop too, intriguing and a little sinister…