Dan

I'll be honest, I wasn't expecting this story to be what it was. For nearly half of the book I frankly was bored, waiting for some thrust into our protagonist's plight to emerge. The bulk of the intro does a great job establishing background to the characters and the type of world they inhabit–one where at any moment and for no reason at all their memories of something can disappear, enforced by the mysterious memory police. There are a lot of concepts thrown around here, ones I was excited to explore, but it spent a bit longer than I expected fleshing them all out.

So, when around the halfway point I realized the story structure was more akin to 1984, sharing more of a glimpse of someone's life within this conceptual world, rather than telling a story of that person exploring how they might break out of a problem the world puts in front of them, I started to understand why I was so bored for so long. I was expecting the pieces to amount to some adventure, a call to action to take our protagonist to explore this world for some reason or another–and there were plenty of things she could have sought after! The fates of many close characters are touched upon in a way the protagonist might want to explore them with more depth (loved ones die, neighbors disappear, a close colleague becomes indebted to her for his livelihood), maybe she is compelled to try to remember something that's dear to her, maybe there is something to be gleaned about the true nature of these police or the relationship their island has with other places outside of it, maybe there is merit to trying to escape the island, but no, the story plods along telling only of how she forgets more and more and more.

And that's okay. It just wasn't what I was expecting. I want to rate this higher because I enjoyed the concepts explored and there were some profound scenes, but I can't rate it too high because frankly, on the whole I did not enjoy reading this book. And that's okay as well. I appreciate this book for what it is, and with this knowledge now I feel confident recommending this to people, but I can't in good faith say it is a particularly entertaining read, more of a thoughtful one. In the end, I didn't grasp a singular message or sentiment from the book, and I think I was also looking for that, but I think there is plenty to the story for one to make their own conclusion and draw parallels to pieces of their own life. We all forget things the same way those in this book do, just often not about such foundational things as birds or calendars, and they don't simply cease to exist from our world when we do forget them.

The one message that stood out to me the most, about halfway through the book, was when the protagonist was losing a memory of something near to her. It was something that everyone had some appreciation for, but was of more importance to the main character. Lamenting that she would soon completely forget about this thing, she talks with a close friend about this occurrence with some mild amount of panic. The other person simply says to her that it's okay. They'll forget it, and they'll move on. The hole in their mind where that thing occupied space will fill in with other things, insinuating that since things more often disappear from their minds than get added, the space will be filled with the leftover memories that aren't lost. I found this particularly sad, on two levels. One, the dismissal of losing something precious to the protagonist was astonishingly bitter, and left me feeling so much contempt for this other person's attitude. Second, the assumption that holes in these people's minds get filled in only with the leftover memories implies that their minds only narrow and don't grow. Their perspective only shrinks. What a sad fate to be resigned to. And I drew parallels to both of these sentiments in how some people act in our daily life.

Ultimately, those thoughts will stick with me. As well, the way Yoko Ogawa describes concepts disappearing from the characters' minds is very thoughtfully done, especially near the end when much more difficult concepts begin losing themselves. I found this to be a well written and thought provoking book, but don't go in expecting a story, more a description of a concept.

I can fully acknowledge and appreciate that there is a good--perhaps even excellent--book in here. However, it was a little too dense and frankly a bit too smart for me to follow at times, and that did detract from my enjoyment of it. When reviewing this, I felt like the book itself was quite good but also like I did not enjoy reading it particularly much. Don't get me wrong, there were concepts I really dug and parts that really pulled me in, but overall reading this did feel a bit muddy and like my mind often wandered FAR off from it. Would I continue reading this series? Frankly, to my disappointment, the ending really grabbed me and made me want to continue reading the series but I did know that it would probably be the same experience. Maybe I'll go dive back in, but this is a book where I needed some incredibly soft, sweet candy to chew on immediately after putting it down.

I'm not the target demographic for this book, but I do love YA romance novels. Unfortunately, a lot of this just didn't hit the parts of the genre that I just love. A lot of this book was spent on exploring how out of depth Izumi was in Japan and in another culture, and while I did appreciate that and especially from a youth's POV, I was actually hoping a lot more of it was going to be about forging the relationships with those she met abroad. One thing I was especially disappointed with was the lack of the mother and father's relationship growth–while I understand they were not the focal point, Izumi made a really great case for me to want to see their dynamic more and I was sad it wasn't explored very much. In the end, I didn't hate reading this, it just wasn't the exact cup of tea I wanted it to be! It was cute and entertaining and I also admit the twists within were pretty exciting at points!

Upon finishing Severance I felt confused. I was content in having finished it, and I was engaged especially in the back half of the book, but I also felt like I didn't quite understand what themes I was supposed to have gleaned from this. On reading a bit further into the book, apparently I had somehow missed an important detail that indeed changed my perception of a few key points in the story.

To get it out in the open, there are multiple points in which nostalgia plays a key factor. Somehow, I had missed a link between nostalgia and the fever that incited the events of the book. On realization of this and reflection of the book itself, I really appreciated the theme here.

Much more clear to me was the rhetoric around rampant consumerism, which hit me a lot more than anything else. I appreciated the subtleties in some ways that the book handled this theme, but also how blatant it was at times. It's especially poignant to have picked up on the details Ling Ma put in about this after everything about COVID and the global pandemic we all actually experienced.

Which lastly brings me to the comparison of the pandemic in this book and our real life pandemic we all experienced. I didn't find anything about this book harrowing or depressing to read about, nor did I feel like it sucked me back into that time in all of our lives. I found some things surprisingly–shockingly, even–accurate to how the pandemic shook down in real life, but I didn't really have a lasting feeling of gloom looming over me like I know some who have read this post-2020 felt. I really enjoyed how insightful Ling Ma ended up being about certain things that would transpire during a global pandemic, especially on consumerism and capitalistic goals, and for that alone I wavered from a 3 to 4 star review while writing this.

Overall I was not shaken to my core over this book, but I enjoyed the themes which at times felt disparate but always purposeful–and I think that sums up my general feeling of the book. As it jumps from pre- to mid- to post-pandemic throughout, it was often hard to tell where each thread was pulling towards, or especially how they were relating to one another. However, none of the storylines felt like they were unnecessary. I felt like all had purpose and even if it wasn't obvious how some related to one another, I still gleaned something from them all, which kept me reading. I will probably not read this again, but I would recommend this book, though I'm not sure if I'll spend as much time lingering on it as some other books.

I heard many many things about this book, all good things, and when I finally found the time to pick it up I was honestly surprised by how short it was! But, it lacked no amount of poignancy. To be honest, there were sections while reading where my mind did wander here or there but not due to a lack of interest, just due to how Joan's writing style was. For a moment we would be caught on her husband John, then we were knee-deep in details about heart conditions she read up about, then we were whisked to a memory she had with John or her daughter Quntana. It wasn't my lack of interest, it was just the way she wrote so true to herself and how she was feeling and how one thought reminded her of another and another, and that was what really stuck out to me about this book. It was lovely to hear how connected she felt to her husband and daughter so truly, but all the more tragic when considering both of them might not have known the depths of this connection. I'm not sure if I'll ever desire to read this again, but I don't think I'll forget the emotions Joan dredged up and shared that she felt.