https://www.indiebound.org/book/9780816694556

I like Lorna Landvik, but this book confused me. It was about a lonely actuary who gets visited by aliens who whisk him around to live in various times and as various people. It’s a weird plot, no matter what.

I think there was kind of supposed to be a moral to the story? Some deep lesson about being a human, maybe? But the moral was saccharine and obvious and trite and applied with a pretty heavy hand. Or maybe the moral was *supposed* to be all of those things and the book was just supposed to be fun. But it wasn’t that fun. It was fun like somebody else’s birthday party, as opposed to being exhilarating like your own. At times it was a little cringey. Lorna Landvik, perhaps unsurprisingly, doesn’t have quite the right voice for aliens.

This book was entirely non-offensive. It was not upsetting. It was not insightful. It was not exciting. It was not mundane. This was the oatmeal of books. Warmed the belly and filled me up but was nothing I was very enthusiastic about.

Read this if you are stressed out and hate the world and don’t want to work very hard.