Book 91 - Mindminds, Forever

Title: The Answers

Author: Catherine Lacey

Genre: psych exploration fiction

This book came out of nowhere, bowled me completely over, and then, just like that, was out of my life. I still feel kindof...stunned.

Two big standouts in these pages - the writing and the characters. The writing has a stream-of-consciousness flavour, but with structure and movement through space. Lacey isn't afraid to let her characters sit and stew over the meaning of love, of life, and of relationships, but then she also has them up and at'em interacting with others and with their world. And the characters themselves - so, so interesting. There's never any question of likeable or not, really; they're just there, like real people, and the reader is at their shoulder, right there with them as they try to figure their shit out. As far as trying to decode and understand love, I think this book is very ambitious and may not entirely hit the mark - but it's still very stirring, and the characters' stories and mysteries will be embedded in my brain for some time.

The ending though...

HOW COULD YOU LACEY. It's so abrupt, and leaves so much unresolved - and not in the come-to-your-own-conclusions kind of way, but in the flipping-around-the-book-because-there's-no-way-that's-the-end kind of way! I would have like the culmination of the book to be pushed earlier in the book to give more time for an actual conclusion, a tying of loose ends.

Rating: 🎥🎥🎥🎥/5