Bridge

I loved Shining Girls and Broken Monsters warranted a rare 5 stars — but right off the bat something was off with Bridge. I found the writing plodding and perfunctory, swirling around yet another multiverse book.

After Bridge loses her neuroscientist mother Jo to brain cancer she finds herself, along with her long suffering, non-binary, Puerto Rican artist friend Dom, in her mother's house cleaning it out. Inside the freezer she finds a greyish-yellow cocoon like a spindle wrapped in elastic bands. Naturally she breaks off a piece and swallows it — remembering something about a dreamworm.

Turns out the dreamworm allows Bridge to jump into other worlds, to occupy the bodies of other versions of herself in the vast multiverse. A world-travelling influencer or a punk-rock mother and her abusive boyfriend — the same person made strange through different choices. Been there, done that, but I'm ready to be convinced by Beukes.

It's hard when the main character is just so unsympathetic. Her single-minded pursuit felt grating and selfish - certainly reflecting drug addiction and an unhealthy response to a fresh loss, but Bridge is just the worst. It's made ever more clear when paired with her long-suffering, voice of reason, helpful enabler Dom. And sure you can cite generational trauma as Jo Kittinger is also, the worst — which meant I never bought why Bridge would be so singularly obsessed with finding her.

Everyone is pared down to a singular obsessive impulse. Even amidst the blood spattered gore it felt monochromatic and dull as a result. Robots with singular purpose colliding in the multiverse with an ending I just didn't buy.