Severance
Ratings20
Average rating3.8
15
Ratings20
Average rating3.8
Maybe it’s the end of the world, but not for Candace Chen, a millennial, first-generation American and office drone meandering her way into adulthood in Ling Ma’s offbeat, wryly funny, apocalyptic satire, Severance. "A stunning, audacious book with a fresh take on both office politics and what the apocalypse might bring." —Michael Schaub, NPR.org “A satirical spin on the end times-- kind of like The Office meets The Leftovers.” --Estelle Tang, Elle NAMED A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR BY: NPR * The New Yorker ("Books We Loved") * Elle * Marie Claire * Amazon Editors * The Paris Review (Staff Favorites) * Refinery29 * Bustle * Buzzfeed * BookPage * Bookish * Mental Floss * Chicago Review of Books * HuffPost * Electric Literature * A.V. Club * Jezebel * Vulture * Literary Hub * Flavorwire Winner of the NYPL Young Lions Fiction Award * Winner of the Kirkus Prize for Fiction * Winner of the VCU Cabell First Novelist Award * Finalist for the PEN/Hemingway Award for Debut Novel * A New York Times Notable Book of 2018 * An Indie Next Selection Candace Chen, a millennial drone self-sequestered in a Manhattan office tower, is devoted to routine. With the recent passing of her Chinese immigrant parents, she’s had her fill of uncertainty. She’s content just to carry on: She goes to work, troubleshoots the teen-targeted Gemstone Bible, watches movies in a Greenpoint basement with her boyfriend. So Candace barely notices when a plague of biblical proportions sweeps New York. Then Shen Fever spreads. Families flee. Companies cease operations. The subways screech to a halt. Her bosses enlist her as part of a dwindling skeleton crew with a big end-date payoff. Soon entirely alone, still unfevered, she photographs the eerie, abandoned city as the anonymous blogger NY Ghost. Candace won’t be able to make it on her own forever, though. Enter a group of survivors, led by the power-hungry IT tech Bob. They’re traveling to a place called the Facility, where, Bob promises, they will have everything they need to start society anew. But Candace is carrying a secret she knows Bob will exploit. Should she escape from her rescuers? A send-up and takedown of the rituals, routines, and missed opportunities of contemporary life, Ling Ma’s Severance is a moving family story, a quirky coming-of-adulthood tale, and a hilarious, deadpan satire. Most important, it’s a heartfelt tribute to the connections that drive us to do more than survive.
Reviews with the most likes.
This is an introspective novel that skillfully combines elements of dystopia, satire, and coming-of-age storytelling. Set in a post-apocalyptic world, the book follows the story of Candace Chen, a millennial corporate worker, as she navigates the aftermath of the mysterious Shen Fever pandemic.
The narrative seamlessly alternates between Candace's pre-apocalypse life in the corporate world and her present-day struggle for survival in a desolate New York City, where she joins a group of survivors led by a power-hungry individual. Against this backdrop, the novel delves into themes of consumerism, capitalism, and the soul-draining monotony of corporate culture.
Ma's writing style is both serene and compelling, capturing the ordinary and unsettling moments of Candace's journey with depth and emotional resonance.
While the story may have a slower pace at times, it compensates by exploring profound questions of identity and self-discovery. Severance offers readers a unique and thought-provoking perspective on the human experience.
This is closer to a 3.5 - but rounding up. Took me a few tries to pickup the book and finally finish it.
All I can say (without spoiling it) is that Ling Ma mastered writing - from time shifting between present and past. And successfully building a strong world for her well developed characters to tell their stories.
Reader be warned, At times it feels like our present - small details on the sequencing of events. This is not a book to escape from reality if that's the intent.
I enjoyed the writing and that itself kept me reading but the story was ultimately unsatisfying. The book scratched the surface of the story's potential and just... stops. Literally.
