Severance

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.