Astrid Hawk

When I first started reading this, I was struck by how similar the setup was to Recursion, by Blake Crouch, and wondered why no one was talking about it. The speculative "science" used in this book is nearly identical to the technology that Crouch uses in Recursion. In both books, a non-technical but incredibly rich megalomaniac constructs a secret lab and hires physicists and neurobiologists to build a device that captures and replays "memories", allowing the subject to time travel to his own recorded memories. Both evil masterminds argue that the technology can be used to improve alzheimers patients' lives, and for un-writing the bad events of the world, while of course secretly planning to use it for their own ends. In both books, the technology developed involves immersion in a sensory deprivation tank and a drug injection - although in Crouch's book they rely on drugs the human brain itself has been known to produce on death. And both books rely on the male protagonist's main motivation for returning to the past being the sudden death of a daughter.

At first, I thought the similarities were almost suspicious - aside from the writing style and tone, everything was lining up a little too well. I still can't explain the mechanical similarities, but this is definitely not just a lit-fic version of Crouch's thriller. The technology in Lightbreakers rather quickly takes a backseat to the more philosophical questions of how one determines truth and reality given that all memory is incorrect / incomplete, whereas Crouch's book keeps the tech and the time travel at the center of the plot and the action.

I wasn't a huge fan of Recursion because I felt that the characters were underdeveloped and that the book focused too much on the exaggerated, escalating conflict over who had the rights to use and build the technology. But in Lightbreakers, I found the focus on the characters' personal challenges overly frustrating. Maya and Eileen felt like the same person to me, just with different experiences, and Noah was portrayed as immature and weak through all phases of life we see - incapable of making good decisions and figuring himself out, and waiting for others to tell him who he is and what makes sense for him.

My biggest issue with this book, though, was how slowly it moved but still failed to fully develop the many ideas it was presenting. It had an ambitious concept, weaving together themes of grief and loss, children of intercultural marriages and the challenge of defining what is "home", self-definition through vocation and relationships, art (and the art world of reviewing art, making art, and expression through color and movement), and of course memory and the unchangeable nature of the past defining the future. The writing was beautiful, particularly when it came to describing the characters making and experiencing art, but when it came to the characters' thoughts and conversations, it felt like the author was deliberately talking over the readers' heads. I was reminded a bit of My Friends, where every other thought/statement from a character needed to be a philosophical revelation on the human condition.

In the end, I had to treat this book like a school assignment to get through it - which is really disappointing, because I think the concepts and the writing had a lot of potential to be something really immersive and enjoyable.

3.75*, because I have a soft spot (organ heart?) for octopuses, and I think the author really nailed Marcellus's "personality" in this. Marcellus is *exactly* as I would expect a sentient GPO (giant pacific octopus) to be - slightly grumpy, slightly judgmental, grudgingly yet deeply attached to special humans. (In fact, I have a plush GPO in my house who has pretty much exactly the imaginary personality that Marcellus has, and my GPO Otto has been in my home for 6 years now (ignore the fact that Otto would never live that long in reality), so his character in my life far predates Marcellus's publishing... the similarities are really striking and predisposed me to love this book no matter what the rest of it was about.)

But, I digress. Most of the book is a human story, and while it's touching and heartwarming, I feel it's like much of modern contemporary fiction is - a bit overly warm, sadness and happiness both exaggerated to draw deep feelings out of the reader, with simplistic language and an annoying third-person-present-tense perspective that makes the tone even more colloquial and casual. If Marcellus wasn't in this, I would have been even less enthusiastic. Although I think Van Pelt does a good job of capturing various elements of small Pacific Northwest towns, the whole thing is very idealized. There are mentions of poverty and being "on the wrong side of the tracks", but everything we see feels more like Issaquah or Sammamish (if Issaquah and Sammamish were on the coast) than a real economically depressed PNW community. (For those not in the PNW, Issaquah and Sammamish are both suburbs east of Seattle that are both more recently affluent out of middle- to upper-middle-class beginnings with small older downtowns that appeal to tourists and city visitors on day trips - although to be fair, neither one has true small-town vibes anymore.)

I loved the sense of place we got, from the descriptions of Seattle's freeway system as chaotic winding viaducts and tunnels (accurate) to the frigid briny water of the Sound (also accurate). But the human characters annoyed me. Tova was somewhat believable, I suppose, as someone who has become prickly and closed-off as a result of the traumas she's lived and how she's dealt with getting old and being alone. But the others felt very unrealistic.

Cameron especially reads more like a 19-20 year old than a 30 year old. I get that he's supposed to be stuck in this "failure to launch" sort of place in his life, but his naivete and apparent lack of ability to take any kind of responsibility or know the basics of adulting sounds far more juvenile than 30 years old. Perhaps it's also weird to me that he's suddenly taking on this quest to find his parents at the age of 30... which seems like something one might do closer to 20 when one is first of age and having to make one's way in the world. Perhaps this is my own blindness having grown up with two parents.

This is one of those rare cases where I actually think the movie was better than the book. Marcellus, who we've already established is the best part, is portrayed and voiced perfectly in the movie. The plot points are also significantly changed in the movie - in my opinion, these changes helped explain some of the characters' motivations, particularly Tova's unresolved feelings around Erik's tragedy, while maintaining the bones of the book. I'd recommend the movie if you, like me, love octopuses and cephalopods and enjoy imagining them as thinking, reasoning, feeling creatures with real personalities. If you prefer reading about struggles with loss and aging, I guess the book is better for that... but I still feel the movie expresses the story better.