Title: How High We Go in the Dark

Author: Sequoia Nagamatsu

Publisher: William Morrow 2022

Genre: Speculative Fiction

Pages: 304

Rating: 5/5 stars

Reading Challenges: Spring TBR List

For fans of Cloud Atlas and Station Eleven, a spellbinding and profoundly prescient debut that follows a cast of intricately linked characters over hundreds of years as humanity struggles to rebuild itself in the aftermath of a climate plague—a daring and deeply heartfelt work of mind-bending imagination from a singular new voice. In 2030, a grieving archeologist arrives in the Arctic Circle to continue the work of his recently deceased daughter at the Batagaika Crater, where researchers are studying long-buried secrets now revealed in melting permafrost, including the perfectly preserved remains of a girl who appears to have died of an ancient virus. Once unleashed, the Arctic plague will reshape life on Earth for generations to come, quickly traversing the globe, forcing humanity to devise a myriad of moving and inventive ways to embrace possibility in the face of tragedy. In a theme park designed for terminally ill children, a cynical employee falls in love with a mother desperate to hold on to her infected son. A heartbroken scientist searching for a cure finds a second chance at fatherhood when one of his test subjects—a pig—develops the capacity for human speech. A widowed painter and her teenaged granddaughter embark on a cosmic quest to locate a new home planet. From funerary skyscrapers to hotels for the dead to interstellar starships, Sequoia Nagamatsu takes readers on a wildly original and compassionate journey, spanning continents, centuries, and even celestial bodies to tell a story about the resilience of the human spirit, our infinite capacity to dream, and the connective threads that tie us all together in the universe.

I’m not exactly sure how to review this book. I do know that I loved it and have been talking about it nonstop. There are some very heavy themes in here and it’s definitely not for HSPs. There are many parallels to our current pandemic that made me think about our future and how people have responded to events. I imagine that I will be thinking about this book for many days to come. I’m participating in a zoom conversation at the beginning of April. Maybe I will solidify my thoughts by that time. Overall, I found this collection of connecting stories to be absolutely amazing.

Next up on the TBR pile: