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The Morningside
From the critically beloved, New York Times bestselling author of The Tiger's Wife and Inland, a magical novel of mothers and daughters, displacement and belonging, and myths both old and new.
There’s the world you can see. And then there’s the one you can’t. Welcome to the Morningside.
After being expelled from their ancestral home, Silvia and her mother finally settle at the Morningside, a crumbling luxury tower in Island City where Silvia’s aunt Ena serves as the superintendent. Silvia feels unmoored in her new life because her mother has been so diligently secretive about their family's past. Silvia knows almost nothing about the place where she was born and spent her early years, nor does she know why she and her mother had to leave. But in Ena there is an a person willing to give the young girl glimpses into the folktales of her demolished homeland, a place of natural beauty and communal spirit that is lacking in Silvia's lonely and impoverished reality.
Enchanted by Ena’s stories, Silvia begins seeing the world with magical possibilities and becomes obsessed with the mysterious older woman who lives in the penthouse of the Morningside. Bezi Duras is an enigma to everyone in the building. She has her own elevator entrance and leaves only to go out at night and walk her three massive hounds, often not returning until the early morning. Silvia’s mission to unravel the truth about this woman’s life, and her own haunted past, may end up costing her everything.
Startling, inventive, and profoundly moving, The Morningside is a novel about the stories we tell—and the stories we refuse to tell—to make sense of where we came from and who we hope we might become.
There’s the world you can see. And then there’s the one you can’t. Welcome to the Morningside.
After being expelled from their ancestral home, Silvia and her mother finally settle at the Morningside, a crumbling luxury tower in Island City where Silvia’s aunt Ena serves as the superintendent. Silvia feels unmoored in her new life because her mother has been so diligently secretive about their family's past. Silvia knows almost nothing about the place where she was born and spent her early years, nor does she know why she and her mother had to leave. But in Ena there is an a person willing to give the young girl glimpses into the folktales of her demolished homeland, a place of natural beauty and communal spirit that is lacking in Silvia's lonely and impoverished reality.
Enchanted by Ena’s stories, Silvia begins seeing the world with magical possibilities and becomes obsessed with the mysterious older woman who lives in the penthouse of the Morningside. Bezi Duras is an enigma to everyone in the building. She has her own elevator entrance and leaves only to go out at night and walk her three massive hounds, often not returning until the early morning. Silvia’s mission to unravel the truth about this woman’s life, and her own haunted past, may end up costing her everything.
Startling, inventive, and profoundly moving, The Morningside is a novel about the stories we tell—and the stories we refuse to tell—to make sense of where we came from and who we hope we might become.
287 pages, Hardcover
First published March 19, 2024
About the author
Téa Obreht
21 books1,838 followersTéa Obreht was born in 1985 in the former Yugoslavia, and spent her childhood in Cyprus and Egypt before eventually immigrating to the United States in 1997. Her writing has been published in The New Yorker, The Atlantic, Harper’s, Zoetrope: All-Story, The New York Times, and The Guardian, and has been anthologized in The Best American Short Stories and The Best American Non-Required Reading. Her first novel,
The Tiger’s Wife,
was published by Random House in March 2011. She has been named by The New Yorker as one of the twenty best American fiction writers under forty and included in the National Book Foundation’s list of 5 Under 35. Téa Obreht lives in Ithaca, New York.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 883 reviews
January 21, 2024
The Morningside by Téa Obreht is a Family and Literary Fiction Story Sprinkled With Magical Realism and Set in a Dystopian and Post-Apocalyptic World!
Holy-Moly! There's a lot going on in this story...
Silvia knows little about where she's from, why they had to leave, or why her mother keeps their past so secretive. The only thing she knows is now they're living at The Morningside, an aging luxury high-rise in Island City where her Aunt Ena has lived and worked for the past ten years.
Silvia loves her conversations with Aunt Ena, who feeds her imagination with stories about the homeland she doesn't remember. Silvia becomes enamored by Ena's tales and her imagination spills over with thoughts about the mysterious resident living in the penthouse. She makes it her focus to discover the truth about this woman's life...
The Morningside is a Dystopian and Post-Apocalyptic story written in the first-person narrative of curious eleven-year-old Silvia. Silvia is quiet, bright, and observant and possesses keen senses for a child her age. Perhaps it's due to being raised by a mother who shares little that Silvia is driven to find answers on her own.
Silvia meets two individuals she develops friendships with and it's through these connections the story becomes more about the characters and relationships and less about the changing world described in Obreht's lovely writing.
The story can feel cramped with melodrama and distractions, jumping from one catastrophe to the next, and taking abrupt turns through unexpected decisions by the characters. For me, it added additional layers and interest.
The Morningside is creative and original storytelling about a mother-daughter relationship, finding family, and discovering your place in the world. I recommend it to readers who enjoy a well-written character-driven Family and Literary Fiction story with touches of Magical Realism like I do. I plan to look at Téa Obreht's backlist for more to read while I wait for her next book!
4⭐
Thank you to Random House and Téa Obreht for a physical ARC, and a DRC of this book through NetGalley. It has been an honor to give my honest and voluntary review.
Holy-Moly! There's a lot going on in this story...
Silvia knows little about where she's from, why they had to leave, or why her mother keeps their past so secretive. The only thing she knows is now they're living at The Morningside, an aging luxury high-rise in Island City where her Aunt Ena has lived and worked for the past ten years.
Silvia loves her conversations with Aunt Ena, who feeds her imagination with stories about the homeland she doesn't remember. Silvia becomes enamored by Ena's tales and her imagination spills over with thoughts about the mysterious resident living in the penthouse. She makes it her focus to discover the truth about this woman's life...
The Morningside is a Dystopian and Post-Apocalyptic story written in the first-person narrative of curious eleven-year-old Silvia. Silvia is quiet, bright, and observant and possesses keen senses for a child her age. Perhaps it's due to being raised by a mother who shares little that Silvia is driven to find answers on her own.
Silvia meets two individuals she develops friendships with and it's through these connections the story becomes more about the characters and relationships and less about the changing world described in Obreht's lovely writing.
The story can feel cramped with melodrama and distractions, jumping from one catastrophe to the next, and taking abrupt turns through unexpected decisions by the characters. For me, it added additional layers and interest.
The Morningside is creative and original storytelling about a mother-daughter relationship, finding family, and discovering your place in the world. I recommend it to readers who enjoy a well-written character-driven Family and Literary Fiction story with touches of Magical Realism like I do. I plan to look at Téa Obreht's backlist for more to read while I wait for her next book!
4⭐
Thank you to Random House and Téa Obreht for a physical ARC, and a DRC of this book through NetGalley. It has been an honor to give my honest and voluntary review.
March 18, 2024
Thank you, Random House, for the free copy of the book.
What a different little book. A dystopian world with some hints of magic, mythology, and fantasy.
About the book: “From the critically beloved, New York Times bestselling author of The Tiger's Wife and Inland, a magical novel of mothers and daughters, displacement and belonging, and myths both old and new.
There’s the world you can see. And then there’s the one you can’t. Welcome to the Morningside.”
Silvia and her mother move into the Morningside, a dilapidated tower on a strange island. Her aunt Ena is the superintendent of the building and regularly shares folk stories of their homeland.
Eventually, Silvia develops an interest in Bezi, the woman who lives in the penthouse of the building. She’s mysterious and keeps to herself, and that makes Silvia even more keen on figuring out her secrets.
The Morningside is set after a climate disaster alters the world. It’s a story of mothers and daughters and deep family secrets of the past. It’s enveloping and the magical realism is done so well. Silvia comes of age within these pages, and this is such a unique character-driven story. The dystopian side begs you to ponder the possibilities of what life could look like one day. A quick and fulfilling read where a touch of whimsy balances the hard truths.
Many of my reviews can also be found on my blog: www.jennifertarheelreader.com and instagram: www.instagram.com/tarheelreader
What a different little book. A dystopian world with some hints of magic, mythology, and fantasy.
About the book: “From the critically beloved, New York Times bestselling author of The Tiger's Wife and Inland, a magical novel of mothers and daughters, displacement and belonging, and myths both old and new.
There’s the world you can see. And then there’s the one you can’t. Welcome to the Morningside.”
Silvia and her mother move into the Morningside, a dilapidated tower on a strange island. Her aunt Ena is the superintendent of the building and regularly shares folk stories of their homeland.
Eventually, Silvia develops an interest in Bezi, the woman who lives in the penthouse of the building. She’s mysterious and keeps to herself, and that makes Silvia even more keen on figuring out her secrets.
The Morningside is set after a climate disaster alters the world. It’s a story of mothers and daughters and deep family secrets of the past. It’s enveloping and the magical realism is done so well. Silvia comes of age within these pages, and this is such a unique character-driven story. The dystopian side begs you to ponder the possibilities of what life could look like one day. A quick and fulfilling read where a touch of whimsy balances the hard truths.
Many of my reviews can also be found on my blog: www.jennifertarheelreader.com and instagram: www.instagram.com/tarheelreader
September 2, 2023
2.5 stars rounded up
Set in a city on the eastern coast somewhere, in the not-too-distant post-apocalyptic-future, the unnamed city has been inundated with flooding, and this is where a relatively young girl and her mother have come to live after leaving their former country. The Morningside is the name of the building they live in, with the mother taking on the job of manager/maintenance for this high-rise building as this begins.
This building (and this story) are filled with some strange and seemingly secretive characters, and two young girls. One, the daughter of the woman who is the manager of the building, and the other a girl around her age. The daughter of the manager and her friend are obsessed over a woman who can occasionally be seen through her window, and whom she believes has “dogs” that transform into human males (or vice-versa).
There is more to this story, but this is one that others will either love or it won’t appeal to them at all. For me, I felt it would have been a better read if the author had not thrown so many disconnected and difficult to believe themes / stories together. A little (often a lot) heavy on the ‘woo-woo” side for me.
Pub Date: 19 Mar 2024
Many thanks for the ARC provided by Random House Publishing Group - Random House, Random House
March 19, 2024
For the first time, Téa Obreht has leaped into the future, though it’s still a future very much invested in the past. Her new novel, “The Morningside,” grew from a short story published in the New York Times Magazine during the covid-19 pandemic. One doesn’t necessarily need to, but considering that story alongside this novel raises curious questions about the differences between these two forms, their strengths and functions. Is a novel a short story all grown up? Is it satisfying to read a novel that fills in a short story’s evocative lacunae?
“The Morningside” takes place in Island City, a swampy version of Manhattan after climate change has flooded the coast. Rather than detailing the political structure of this battered place, Obreht drops provocative hints about the latest efforts to rebuild the city’s infrastructure and the government’s image. So many citizens have fled the rotting metropolis that federal authorities have recruited desperate refugees from abroad to participate in a Repopulation Program. Lured by the promise of a better, safer, more stable life, the huddled masses yearning to breathe free have arrived from Back Home.
As always, what they find is not what they were promised, but they’re cheap, eager labor, and the National Bureau of Posterity admonishes them to keep the faith. Just a little more belt-tightening, a little more hard work, and surely they would find themselves “back in the Island City of before. The city as it had always been, and still was, under or above water: The city of fanfare and electric autumns, of lamplit streets and music and dazzling marquees, of lovers tangling furtively in windows, of lush parks, of townhomes glowing warmly on a moonless night. The ensuing party would be magnificent.”
To read the rest of this review, go to The Washington Post:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/books/...
“The Morningside” takes place in Island City, a swampy version of Manhattan after climate change has flooded the coast. Rather than detailing the political structure of this battered place, Obreht drops provocative hints about the latest efforts to rebuild the city’s infrastructure and the government’s image. So many citizens have fled the rotting metropolis that federal authorities have recruited desperate refugees from abroad to participate in a Repopulation Program. Lured by the promise of a better, safer, more stable life, the huddled masses yearning to breathe free have arrived from Back Home.
As always, what they find is not what they were promised, but they’re cheap, eager labor, and the National Bureau of Posterity admonishes them to keep the faith. Just a little more belt-tightening, a little more hard work, and surely they would find themselves “back in the Island City of before. The city as it had always been, and still was, under or above water: The city of fanfare and electric autumns, of lamplit streets and music and dazzling marquees, of lovers tangling furtively in windows, of lush parks, of townhomes glowing warmly on a moonless night. The ensuing party would be magnificent.”
To read the rest of this review, go to The Washington Post:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/books/...
January 26, 2024
Obreht's third novels takes her strengths from her two previous books and meshes them together in a speculative novel set in the future. From The Tiger's Wife we have the Eastern European folklore and heritage, from Inland we have a gradual but careful plot with high emotional stakes. They were very different from each other but now that we have The Morningside to connect them you can see Obreht's work as a novelist starting to come together with a point of view. I read it in a single day!
The phrase "cli-fi" gets tossed around a lot, and sometimes these novels that consider a future after climate change are heavy handed, sometimes it doesn't seem to care about much except the futuristic setting, but Obreht gets it just right. Not only does she build a realistic future where a partially flooded island city that was probably once Manhattan struggles to become habitable again, but she keeps a keen eye for the political issues and class divides that created the crisis in the first place.
The young protagonist and the initial looseness of the story make it seem like this is one kind of book, but give it time. I found it compelling and enjoyed exploring the world Obreht set up for us, where Silvia and her mother, refugees from a wartorn country, end up as caretakers for an old building with a mix of mostly wealthy residents as part of a rehabitation program. Initially we follow Silvia's curiosity at this new world, especially the conflict between her mother and aunt about the world they came from and the world they live in now. The two women can't seem to agree on any of it, and Silvia finds herself drawn to her aunt's version of the world, one where the legends of the old world are still alive around them.
But eventually it feels less like a world of fairy tales and more like a very real place full of dangers. And yet, it does feel like maybe these stories could all be true. The line between realism and surrealism is always blurred in this novel, which works so well to show us how Silvia sees things. And then, somehow, we find ourselves in a story that is no longer loose and wandering but tense and taut, where all the things Silvia doesn't know will lead her down dangerous paths.
It's the kind of novel that when it's over you realize you ended up nowhere near where you thought you were going to go, which for me is a real pleasure. It's also a novel where you feel like you are in the hands of a writer who knows what she's doing, another real pleasure.
I think Inland was overlooked, perhaps it was because it was so different from The Tiger's Wife and that book was so celebrated. But I adored Inland, and I hope that everyone gives Obreht another look with this little gem.
The phrase "cli-fi" gets tossed around a lot, and sometimes these novels that consider a future after climate change are heavy handed, sometimes it doesn't seem to care about much except the futuristic setting, but Obreht gets it just right. Not only does she build a realistic future where a partially flooded island city that was probably once Manhattan struggles to become habitable again, but she keeps a keen eye for the political issues and class divides that created the crisis in the first place.
The young protagonist and the initial looseness of the story make it seem like this is one kind of book, but give it time. I found it compelling and enjoyed exploring the world Obreht set up for us, where Silvia and her mother, refugees from a wartorn country, end up as caretakers for an old building with a mix of mostly wealthy residents as part of a rehabitation program. Initially we follow Silvia's curiosity at this new world, especially the conflict between her mother and aunt about the world they came from and the world they live in now. The two women can't seem to agree on any of it, and Silvia finds herself drawn to her aunt's version of the world, one where the legends of the old world are still alive around them.
But eventually it feels less like a world of fairy tales and more like a very real place full of dangers. And yet, it does feel like maybe these stories could all be true. The line between realism and surrealism is always blurred in this novel, which works so well to show us how Silvia sees things. And then, somehow, we find ourselves in a story that is no longer loose and wandering but tense and taut, where all the things Silvia doesn't know will lead her down dangerous paths.
It's the kind of novel that when it's over you realize you ended up nowhere near where you thought you were going to go, which for me is a real pleasure. It's also a novel where you feel like you are in the hands of a writer who knows what she's doing, another real pleasure.
I think Inland was overlooked, perhaps it was because it was so different from The Tiger's Wife and that book was so celebrated. But I adored Inland, and I hope that everyone gives Obreht another look with this little gem.
February 24, 2024
I picked this book up because I recognized the author from The Tiger's Wife (which I have yet to read) and wanted the chance to read some of her work.
Description:
There’s the world you can see. And then there’s the one you can’t. Welcome to the Morningside.
After being expelled from their ancestral home, Silvia and her mother finally settle at the Morningside, a crumbling luxury tower in Island City where Silvia’s aunt Ena serves as the superintendent. Silvia feels unmoored in her new life because her mother has been so diligently secretive about their family's past. Silvia knows almost nothing about the place where she was born and spent her early years, nor does she know why she and her mother had to leave. But in Ena there is an a person willing to give the young girl glimpses into the folktales of her demolished homeland, a place of natural beauty and communal spirit that is lacking in Silvia's lonely and impoverished reality.
Enchanted by Ena’s stories, Silvia begins seeing the world with magical possibilities and becomes obsessed with the mysterious older woman who lives in the penthouse of the Morningside. Bezi Duras is an enigma to everyone in the building. She has her own elevator entrance and leaves only to go out at night and walk her three massive hounds, often not returning until the early morning. Silvia’s mission to unravel the truth about this woman’s life, and her own haunted past, may end up costing her everything.
Startling, inventive, and profoundly moving, The Morningside is a novel about the stories we tell—and the stories we refuse to tell—to make sense of where we came from and who we hope we might become.
My Thoughts:
This dystopian world was set somewhere in the United States after some type of climate disaster that included drought and flooding which the people haven't really been able to recover from. The story is told from the point of view of Silvia who lives with her mother. They have been part of a Relocation Project and are living with her Aunt Ena. Silvia's mother won't talk about the past, so Silvia doesn't really know where she came from and what happened in the past. Aunt Ena provides information to Silvia and shows pictures, but Silvia doesn't know what is true and what her mother is hiding. This is the story of a mother and daughter relationship and of hidden secrets. It was interesting to see the two worlds competing in Silvia's mind - the one on the surface and the one Aunt Ena described with her stories of a Vila and scary negotiations the Vila made. This is an interesting book with magical realism and a coming of age story. It is character driven and the characters are well drawn and have depth.
Thanks to Random House through Netgalley for an advance copy. Expected publication on March 19, 2024.
Description:
There’s the world you can see. And then there’s the one you can’t. Welcome to the Morningside.
After being expelled from their ancestral home, Silvia and her mother finally settle at the Morningside, a crumbling luxury tower in Island City where Silvia’s aunt Ena serves as the superintendent. Silvia feels unmoored in her new life because her mother has been so diligently secretive about their family's past. Silvia knows almost nothing about the place where she was born and spent her early years, nor does she know why she and her mother had to leave. But in Ena there is an a person willing to give the young girl glimpses into the folktales of her demolished homeland, a place of natural beauty and communal spirit that is lacking in Silvia's lonely and impoverished reality.
Enchanted by Ena’s stories, Silvia begins seeing the world with magical possibilities and becomes obsessed with the mysterious older woman who lives in the penthouse of the Morningside. Bezi Duras is an enigma to everyone in the building. She has her own elevator entrance and leaves only to go out at night and walk her three massive hounds, often not returning until the early morning. Silvia’s mission to unravel the truth about this woman’s life, and her own haunted past, may end up costing her everything.
Startling, inventive, and profoundly moving, The Morningside is a novel about the stories we tell—and the stories we refuse to tell—to make sense of where we came from and who we hope we might become.
My Thoughts:
This dystopian world was set somewhere in the United States after some type of climate disaster that included drought and flooding which the people haven't really been able to recover from. The story is told from the point of view of Silvia who lives with her mother. They have been part of a Relocation Project and are living with her Aunt Ena. Silvia's mother won't talk about the past, so Silvia doesn't really know where she came from and what happened in the past. Aunt Ena provides information to Silvia and shows pictures, but Silvia doesn't know what is true and what her mother is hiding. This is the story of a mother and daughter relationship and of hidden secrets. It was interesting to see the two worlds competing in Silvia's mind - the one on the surface and the one Aunt Ena described with her stories of a Vila and scary negotiations the Vila made. This is an interesting book with magical realism and a coming of age story. It is character driven and the characters are well drawn and have depth.
Thanks to Random House through Netgalley for an advance copy. Expected publication on March 19, 2024.
October 11, 2023
3.5, rounded up. I adored Obreht's debut novel, the Balkan Wars magic realist family saga The Tiger's Wife, and admired the technical accomplishment and plot mechanics of her second, the parched revisionist Western Inland.
I'm still digesting my reactions to her third, The Morningside, which she wrote during the pandemic, as an expansion of a short story she published in The New York Times Magazine's Decameron Project in 2020. Set in a deeply lived-in retro-nostalgic future reminiscent of an alternate-universe flooded Upper Manhattan, this is an awkward hybrid of a post-apocalyptic climate refugee drama and a Balkan folktale of dark sorcery.
How many sacrifices would you make as a parent in a time of ecological collapse and political uncertainty, knowing that you are powerless to prevent your child's life from becoming far more uncertain and perilous than your own?
Preteen Silvia and her mother are fleeing an unspoken trauma in their unnamed Southeastern European homeland, where their village was destroyed by vaguely-sketched environmental degradation and paramilitary violence. A shadowy government repopulation scheme moves them into a decaying old luxury high-rise (full of cranky Upper West Side oldsters you'd bump into on line at the smoked fish counter at Zabar's), where her aunt Ena is the superintendent. Meanwhile, her mother works as a salvage diver in the drowned urban ruins, seeking to make enough money to buy a local café and live out a quiet life of exile.
Ena enchants Silvia with Balkan folktales, and she becomes convinced that Bezi Duras, a wealthy artist who lives in the building's towering penthouse, is a powerful and malevolent sorceress from the old country, whose three giant wolfhounds are shape-shifting men. Driven by the standard New York YA-novel (cue: From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler) trope of childish curiosity, Silvia seeks to unravel the mystery of this mysterious neighbor's identity, making a frenemy with another girl in her building, meeting mysterious strangers, exploring dangerous urban backwaters, and making Faustian bargains with powerful forces.
Obreht provides pointillistic touches that make this future world feel like a lucid dream: streets drowning in the tide, elevated railways that end in midair, an ancient jar of fig jam, nests of rook crane eggs, delicatessens serving illegal meat, collapsing flooded basements. Her prose style is dependably evocative and poetic, but couldn't make all of these disparate elements cohere, despite the emotional stunner of the final chapter's revelations.
Many thanks to Random House and Netgalley for providing me with an ARC, in exchange for an honest and unbiased review. The US publication date is March 19, 2024.
I'm still digesting my reactions to her third, The Morningside, which she wrote during the pandemic, as an expansion of a short story she published in The New York Times Magazine's Decameron Project in 2020. Set in a deeply lived-in retro-nostalgic future reminiscent of an alternate-universe flooded Upper Manhattan, this is an awkward hybrid of a post-apocalyptic climate refugee drama and a Balkan folktale of dark sorcery.
How many sacrifices would you make as a parent in a time of ecological collapse and political uncertainty, knowing that you are powerless to prevent your child's life from becoming far more uncertain and perilous than your own?
Preteen Silvia and her mother are fleeing an unspoken trauma in their unnamed Southeastern European homeland, where their village was destroyed by vaguely-sketched environmental degradation and paramilitary violence. A shadowy government repopulation scheme moves them into a decaying old luxury high-rise (full of cranky Upper West Side oldsters you'd bump into on line at the smoked fish counter at Zabar's), where her aunt Ena is the superintendent. Meanwhile, her mother works as a salvage diver in the drowned urban ruins, seeking to make enough money to buy a local café and live out a quiet life of exile.
Ena enchants Silvia with Balkan folktales, and she becomes convinced that Bezi Duras, a wealthy artist who lives in the building's towering penthouse, is a powerful and malevolent sorceress from the old country, whose three giant wolfhounds are shape-shifting men. Driven by the standard New York YA-novel (cue: From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler) trope of childish curiosity, Silvia seeks to unravel the mystery of this mysterious neighbor's identity, making a frenemy with another girl in her building, meeting mysterious strangers, exploring dangerous urban backwaters, and making Faustian bargains with powerful forces.
Obreht provides pointillistic touches that make this future world feel like a lucid dream: streets drowning in the tide, elevated railways that end in midair, an ancient jar of fig jam, nests of rook crane eggs, delicatessens serving illegal meat, collapsing flooded basements. Her prose style is dependably evocative and poetic, but couldn't make all of these disparate elements cohere, despite the emotional stunner of the final chapter's revelations.
Many thanks to Random House and Netgalley for providing me with an ARC, in exchange for an honest and unbiased review. The US publication date is March 19, 2024.
October 16, 2023
Téa Obreht writes in a distinct style, able to fold surreal elements into realism seemingly effortlessly. Her two previous novels shared these dreamlike qualities, The Tiger's Wife exploring her native Yugoslavian history and Inland, the American wild west. The reader could find themselves upended and disoriented, with Serbian folklore scattered throughout. In The Morningside, she attacks climate change in this original, disquieting manner, with questions left unanswered. Syl and her mother have been uprooted, finding themselves in a repopulated area reminiscent of the Upper West Side of Manhattan, but no names give this away, just a sense. The once glamorous, sparkling city has been flooded, and Morningside is a former luxury building inhabited by survivors who remember the past. Constantly in the background, a pirate radio station gives reports phoned in anonymously. While I usually shy away from dystopian material, this held my attention thanks to Obreht's beautiful imagery and impeccable prose.
September 23, 2023
I loved The Morningside but it’s definitely an odd, beautiful book and won’t appeal to everyone. It reminded me of The Rabbit Hutch, except written by someone who actually knows poverty instead of who’s just good with prose, but set in a mystical, climate-ravaged, war-torn dystopian future.
Silvia and her mother are refugees from the mysterious Back Home, a place Sil must never speak of, a language called Ours she can only speak to her mother, lest people make assumptions about which side they were on. I actually liked how so few details about the war were given; enough is teased that you can make inferences from the beauty of the withholding. They are resettled into an apartment building called The Morningside, where Sil’s mother is building superintendent. I kept wondering which side Sil’s mother was on even after the revelations came out about their mysterious new neighbors.
Egged on by the mystical stories of a dead, beloved relative with rose-colored memories of their homeland, 12-year-old Sil becomes obsessed with the eccentric old lady living in the penthhouse suite. She becomes convinced that the artist and her three large dogs are actually werewolves led by a Vila, a monstrous evil spirit, and seeks proof. A new family moves into the building who has a girl her age, more brazen than her, and the two step up their investigation, to disastrous results.
I loved all the characters in this. Every side character was colorful and complex, and I liked how Sil and her mother were often unlikable but fascinating figures. I enjoyed the magic system in this; magical realism at its finest, but you were never certain if the magic was real or just made up to make people feel better. I liked how you were never certain of their past; did the jam jar Sil’s aunt Ena told stories about really come from her mother’s orchard or just the corner store? The prose was also beautiful; it made me want to check out the author’s back catalogue.
The pacing maybe focused too much on the mysterious Bezi and not enough on the dark secrets of Mila’s family, but I liked it and thought it appropriate for the perspective of an adult protagonist looking back at her childhood.
Overall I found this a fascinating, hopeful book, a story of people finding community and family against all odds in a hollowed out world with no future.
Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for the advance review copy. I am leaving this review voluntarily.
Silvia and her mother are refugees from the mysterious Back Home, a place Sil must never speak of, a language called Ours she can only speak to her mother, lest people make assumptions about which side they were on. I actually liked how so few details about the war were given; enough is teased that you can make inferences from the beauty of the withholding. They are resettled into an apartment building called The Morningside, where Sil’s mother is building superintendent. I kept wondering which side Sil’s mother was on even after the revelations came out about their mysterious new neighbors.
Egged on by the mystical stories of a dead, beloved relative with rose-colored memories of their homeland, 12-year-old Sil becomes obsessed with the eccentric old lady living in the penthhouse suite. She becomes convinced that the artist and her three large dogs are actually werewolves led by a Vila, a monstrous evil spirit, and seeks proof. A new family moves into the building who has a girl her age, more brazen than her, and the two step up their investigation, to disastrous results.
I loved all the characters in this. Every side character was colorful and complex, and I liked how Sil and her mother were often unlikable but fascinating figures. I enjoyed the magic system in this; magical realism at its finest, but you were never certain if the magic was real or just made up to make people feel better. I liked how you were never certain of their past; did the jam jar Sil’s aunt Ena told stories about really come from her mother’s orchard or just the corner store? The prose was also beautiful; it made me want to check out the author’s back catalogue.
The pacing maybe focused too much on the mysterious Bezi and not enough on the dark secrets of Mila’s family, but I liked it and thought it appropriate for the perspective of an adult protagonist looking back at her childhood.
Overall I found this a fascinating, hopeful book, a story of people finding community and family against all odds in a hollowed out world with no future.
Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for the advance review copy. I am leaving this review voluntarily.
December 12, 2024
Shortlisted for the 2025 Climate Prize.
Tea Obrecht’s debut novel “The Tiger’s Wife” was remarkably both a National Book Award finalist and the winner of the Women’s Prize for Fiction in 2011. And this is only her third novel and the first of her I have read (due to its Climate Prize listing).
Her debut novel drew on her Yugoslav upbringing set in a fictionalised Balkan province with a mix of family saga, rituals and folklore which also characterises this novel
Obrecht herself in an interview about her motivation for the book captures really well how it brings together ideas of isolation, insecurity versus stability and how they might play out in a climate impacted near future:
It is a Ballardian near-ish future dystopia set in once great City (unnamed but with some New York vibes) but which now due to sea level rises is a mix of isolated peninsulas and ruined roads and railways areas which can only be navigated by careful reference to tidal charts, and subject to Posterity measures (including rationing and a ban or at least taboo on meat eating).
The country in which the City is set has decided to embark on a long term Repopulation Program – and (partly also as a way to meet some of their treaty obligations for their past role in environmental disaster) – offer an immigration program whereby citizens of other countries agree to come to live and work in the denuded urban environments in return for short term rations and keep and a long term promise of education and property-ownership as the City’s land reclamation project gains momentum (the implicit hope/promise is also that environmentally the worse has occurred and things are gradually starting to get better).
The core of the novel is a small family unit (Aunt Ena, Mother, Daughter Sil(via)) and others – immigrants (under the Repopulation Program) from an unnamed country (referred to them only as Back There) one ripped apart by civil war, refugees and atrocities and where the nuanced accent and version of their shared language (Ours) risks revealing your origins and affiliations and threatening your new status and safety.
Ena is superintendent in the titular apartment block – once the height of luxury and des-res, now largely abandoned apart from its penthouse occupied by a reclusive famous painter (also from Back Home) Bezi Duras – only ever seen, after dusk, with three giant dogs. When Ena dies, Sil’s mother inherits her apartment and job – but before that happens Ena instils in Sil a nostalgia-infused view of Back Home which is very different from her mother’s, as well as a series of folklore : firstly the legend of the Vila (taken it seems from The Building of Skadar but one immediately familiar to me from the ballet Giselle) and secondly claims that Bezi Duras’s dogs are in fact men during the day. This leads Sil to an obsession with Duras and also quickly to link the two ideas and believe that Duras herself is a Vila.
Meanwhile Sil’s mother becomes obsessed with an abandoned café which she imagines buying in future, before taking up a career as a salvage diver investigating the sunken parts of building for either their ex-owners or insurance companies. And other characters which complicate the picture include Lam Osmond – an ex-writer with a complex past involving a train station collapse and appropriation of some abandoned poetry; Mila – a girl, also from Back Home, who moves into the apartment with her mother (and later her reclusive father) and whose approach to investigating Bezi Duras is rather more direct than Sil’s circumlocutory efforts. And a subplot has Duras herself exposing the delusions at the heart of both the Repopulation program’s promises and the long term resident’s beliefs of a future turnaround.
And all along we know from the first chapter that Sil’s mother is in future forum-famous for her involvement in a famous case which seems to involve Mila’s disappearance.
And within all of that a series of ideas and images recur: Migratory rook cranes; The Drowned City Dispatch radio station (and its Dispatcher call-in host); a perfume bottle – one of three original protective talismans Sil hides around the apartment; Repolulation feedback cards with three questions and which Sil fills in frequently (sometimes in ink, sometimes in her imagination) and so on – all of which for me added to the authenticity of the book and worked much better than the more folkloric elements.
And as we eventually understand why both Sil’s mother and Mila’s father both end up future notorious for different reasons, the book takes a more tangible but darker and again I would say more satisfactory turn.
Overall, I found this an interesting novel – one which drew me in with its worldbuilding.
Tea Obrecht’s debut novel “The Tiger’s Wife” was remarkably both a National Book Award finalist and the winner of the Women’s Prize for Fiction in 2011. And this is only her third novel and the first of her I have read (due to its Climate Prize listing).
Her debut novel drew on her Yugoslav upbringing set in a fictionalised Balkan province with a mix of family saga, rituals and folklore which also characterises this novel
Obrecht herself in an interview about her motivation for the book captures really well how it brings together ideas of isolation, insecurity versus stability and how they might play out in a climate impacted near future:
As the pandemic kicked off, I found myself kind of, I suppose, isolated, in a way, by the fact that people around me, the people in my life seemed surprised ….. I was surprised at my own reaction, the fact that I felt so prepared. And I tried to think about where that had come from. And I think the answer was, I’m realizing now or realized at some point, while writing the book that the answer was that I had been raised by… by people who had suffered a society ending event, you know, not ending, but a society altering event. They were born, and they lived, and they were culturally of a nation in which they believed, which ceased to exist. …. when the country fell apart, their sense of displacement, their sense of heartbreak, their sense of loss, it was really intense. They tried to hide it from me, but they were lost. And the feeling that I was raised with, which I’m sure they didn’t intend, was that this kind of event was inevitable and that another one was coming; that something else like this was sort of pursuing you around the corners of your life, and that notions of a certain kind of stability weren’t real ……………… we lived next door for a really long time, we were living in New York, next to the Jewish Seminary, which a few years before the pandemic tore down one of its buildings and sold part of the complex to a developer who was building this monster luxury tower there. And it was completed, kind of right as the pandemic kicked off. And I remember thinking, building a building, what an act of confidence that is in your society, you know, what an act of faith in your institutions and the fact that the things that bring order, and financial stability will continue as they are ……………. And I think those two things coalesced for me and the story pulled out of that, you know, this idea of like, well, what would it be like if people were living in a tower like this, but 80 years from now instead of recovering, quote unquote, from a world ending event. The community around it had just continued into a slow, devastating slide into incompetence and bureaucratic snarl and it was a continuation of the injustices that already persist in our society. What would this moment look like but 80 years from now?
It is a Ballardian near-ish future dystopia set in once great City (unnamed but with some New York vibes) but which now due to sea level rises is a mix of isolated peninsulas and ruined roads and railways areas which can only be navigated by careful reference to tidal charts, and subject to Posterity measures (including rationing and a ban or at least taboo on meat eating).
The country in which the City is set has decided to embark on a long term Repopulation Program – and (partly also as a way to meet some of their treaty obligations for their past role in environmental disaster) – offer an immigration program whereby citizens of other countries agree to come to live and work in the denuded urban environments in return for short term rations and keep and a long term promise of education and property-ownership as the City’s land reclamation project gains momentum (the implicit hope/promise is also that environmentally the worse has occurred and things are gradually starting to get better).
The core of the novel is a small family unit (Aunt Ena, Mother, Daughter Sil(via)) and others – immigrants (under the Repopulation Program) from an unnamed country (referred to them only as Back There) one ripped apart by civil war, refugees and atrocities and where the nuanced accent and version of their shared language (Ours) risks revealing your origins and affiliations and threatening your new status and safety.
Ena is superintendent in the titular apartment block – once the height of luxury and des-res, now largely abandoned apart from its penthouse occupied by a reclusive famous painter (also from Back Home) Bezi Duras – only ever seen, after dusk, with three giant dogs. When Ena dies, Sil’s mother inherits her apartment and job – but before that happens Ena instils in Sil a nostalgia-infused view of Back Home which is very different from her mother’s, as well as a series of folklore : firstly the legend of the Vila (taken it seems from The Building of Skadar but one immediately familiar to me from the ballet Giselle) and secondly claims that Bezi Duras’s dogs are in fact men during the day. This leads Sil to an obsession with Duras and also quickly to link the two ideas and believe that Duras herself is a Vila.
Meanwhile Sil’s mother becomes obsessed with an abandoned café which she imagines buying in future, before taking up a career as a salvage diver investigating the sunken parts of building for either their ex-owners or insurance companies. And other characters which complicate the picture include Lam Osmond – an ex-writer with a complex past involving a train station collapse and appropriation of some abandoned poetry; Mila – a girl, also from Back Home, who moves into the apartment with her mother (and later her reclusive father) and whose approach to investigating Bezi Duras is rather more direct than Sil’s circumlocutory efforts. And a subplot has Duras herself exposing the delusions at the heart of both the Repopulation program’s promises and the long term resident’s beliefs of a future turnaround.
And all along we know from the first chapter that Sil’s mother is in future forum-famous for her involvement in a famous case which seems to involve Mila’s disappearance.
And within all of that a series of ideas and images recur: Migratory rook cranes; The Drowned City Dispatch radio station (and its Dispatcher call-in host); a perfume bottle – one of three original protective talismans Sil hides around the apartment; Repolulation feedback cards with three questions and which Sil fills in frequently (sometimes in ink, sometimes in her imagination) and so on – all of which for me added to the authenticity of the book and worked much better than the more folkloric elements.
And as we eventually understand why both Sil’s mother and Mila’s father both end up future notorious for different reasons, the book takes a more tangible but darker and again I would say more satisfactory turn.
Overall, I found this an interesting novel – one which drew me in with its worldbuilding.
we're promising something that doesn't exist. A city on the verge of a turnaround, when in fact it's just the dying gasp of a time that's all but over. We bring them here not to build the city back up—but to hold the edges while it finishes falling."
June 17, 2024
The mixture of a near-future world mixed with Balkan folklore, magical realism, and science fiction was interesting.
February 25, 2024
Happy publication day and cheers for a new book to treasure from a favorite author who excels in telling tales of uplifting resilience with magical realism!
Obreht is intentionally vague with origin place names and language references, but it seems both climate change and war have created refugees.
A mysterious quest in an atmospheric near future dystopian "Island City" –very similar to Manhattan, New York– celebrates urban wildlife and a magical fabled shapeshifter (vila) of Slavic origin.
An immigration resettlement program, a backbone in this story, inspires disagreement and politically heated arguments.
Our young heroine Sylvia, along with her mom, Aunt Ena, and many other fellow residents of the Morningside are refugee immigrants enduring injustice, including climate disaster aftermath.
Among the visceral elements: recognition of irrepressible wildlife—notably in the guise of enormous otherworldly “rook crane” birds, pointed support of vegetarianism, clear class distinctions among characters, and a dark fairytale layer.
Gratitude to the author and to the publisher for this mysterious, suspenseful, engaging, heart-rending, relatable and especially worthwhile read for fans of folklore, coming-of-age storytelling, magical-realism, nature-urban-wildness-wildlife, and humor!
Originally a short story within the pandemic inspired anthology The Decameron project. It's interesting to discover details that changed when they became part of this full novel, almost like getting to see this writer's process.
Excellent synopsis from Sara Beth West in Shelf Awareness
https://www.shelf-awareness.com/thesh...
Obreht is intentionally vague with origin place names and language references, but it seems both climate change and war have created refugees.
A mysterious quest in an atmospheric near future dystopian "Island City" –very similar to Manhattan, New York– celebrates urban wildlife and a magical fabled shapeshifter (vila) of Slavic origin.
An immigration resettlement program, a backbone in this story, inspires disagreement and politically heated arguments.
Our young heroine Sylvia, along with her mom, Aunt Ena, and many other fellow residents of the Morningside are refugee immigrants enduring injustice, including climate disaster aftermath.
Among the visceral elements: recognition of irrepressible wildlife—notably in the guise of enormous otherworldly “rook crane” birds, pointed support of vegetarianism, clear class distinctions among characters, and a dark fairytale layer.
Gratitude to the author and to the publisher for this mysterious, suspenseful, engaging, heart-rending, relatable and especially worthwhile read for fans of folklore, coming-of-age storytelling, magical-realism, nature-urban-wildness-wildlife, and humor!
Originally a short story within the pandemic inspired anthology The Decameron project. It's interesting to discover details that changed when they became part of this full novel, almost like getting to see this writer's process.
Excellent synopsis from Sara Beth West in Shelf Awareness
https://www.shelf-awareness.com/thesh...
April 18, 2024
At some unknown time in the future after obvious world-wide climate catastrophes, we are introduced to new residents of an apartment building in the City, The Morningside. Eleven year old Silvia (Sil) and her mother have arrived from their destroyed country, part of the Repopulation Program designed to populate areas of this city and country that are to be rebuilt after floods, landslides, forest fires, all types of natural disasters. Sil and her mother have been directed to The Morningside because her Aunt Ena works there as a superintendent.
As they settle in, we learn more of Ena’s folk lore beliefs brought from the old country and see their influence on Sil. Throughout this novel, the tension between the world of magic and the problems of the very real physical world create an at times all-consuming strain on Sil who finds it impossible to talk with her mother about her worries. She is convinced there is a magical person living at The Morningside and worries about her purpose. Sil is at an impressionable age. I found myself trying to imagine myself at 11 or 12 in this type of life shattering situation and couldn’t.
I found this a difficult novel at times. I wonder if some of that difficulty is related to the age of the narrator, Sil, or the amount of unknowns in her life. I liked the premise behind the story and so many of the characters and their situations seemed realistic, sadly. But the flow seemed inconsistent.
Rating 3.5* rounded to 3.
Thanks to Random House and NetGalley for an early copy of this book. This review is my own.
As they settle in, we learn more of Ena’s folk lore beliefs brought from the old country and see their influence on Sil. Throughout this novel, the tension between the world of magic and the problems of the very real physical world create an at times all-consuming strain on Sil who finds it impossible to talk with her mother about her worries. She is convinced there is a magical person living at The Morningside and worries about her purpose. Sil is at an impressionable age. I found myself trying to imagine myself at 11 or 12 in this type of life shattering situation and couldn’t.
I found this a difficult novel at times. I wonder if some of that difficulty is related to the age of the narrator, Sil, or the amount of unknowns in her life. I liked the premise behind the story and so many of the characters and their situations seemed realistic, sadly. But the flow seemed inconsistent.
Rating 3.5* rounded to 3.
Thanks to Random House and NetGalley for an early copy of this book. This review is my own.
March 20, 2024
Tea Obreht offers a unique narrative experience through the eyes of Silvia (Sil), whose life unfolds within the confines of the Morningside, a high-rise in Island City. With dystopian elements, 11-year old Sil shares her journey as part of a repopulation program sometime in the near future, alongside her secretive mother, who doesn’t talk about her past. Sil finds solace in the folktales shared by her Aunt Ena, the superintendent, while navigating the intricacies of her daily routine and forming an obsession with Bezi, a penthouse recluse who lives with 3 wolfhounds. Sil forms an unlikely connection with a middle-aged black character named May who occasionally “creeps” into her life from time to time. I found his backstory fascinating.
Despite initial struggles with the pacing and disorientation in space and time, the story gradually unravels into an engaging exploration of relationships, mysteries, and the power of storytelling. At its core, “The Morningside" delves into Sil's evolving bond with her mother and the unraveling of a compelling mystery that kept me rapt till the very end. Overall, I found the book to be a captivating and immersive read once the story gained momentum. Through Sil’s journey, this novel is a poignant coming- of-age story highlighting her resilience and growth amidst a changing world.
Thank you NetGalley and Random House Publishing Group- Random House for a copy of this ARC.
Despite initial struggles with the pacing and disorientation in space and time, the story gradually unravels into an engaging exploration of relationships, mysteries, and the power of storytelling. At its core, “The Morningside" delves into Sil's evolving bond with her mother and the unraveling of a compelling mystery that kept me rapt till the very end. Overall, I found the book to be a captivating and immersive read once the story gained momentum. Through Sil’s journey, this novel is a poignant coming- of-age story highlighting her resilience and growth amidst a changing world.
Thank you NetGalley and Random House Publishing Group- Random House for a copy of this ARC.
Read
August 26, 2023This is a post-apocalypse novel, set in New York City after flooding has destroyed most of the city. (The author never says that the city in which the novel takes place is New York City, but this reader certainly thought it was.) The main character is a girl who has moved with her mother from another country. Their move is part of the Repopulation program designed to bring people back into the City. The mother becomes the manager and maintenance person for an old high rise building known as The Morningside (even the location on the “island” ties to NYC). The building is inhabited and frequented by some interesting people, including an ex-professor and the “janglers”, who are older ladies who wear lots of jangly jewelry. The main character believes that one inhabitant of the building has supernatural powers, and the main character and her friend try to get to the basis of some strange things going on in the building, which the girls believe are caused by the “witch”.
I felt that the author did a lovely and interesting job of describing NYC post-flood. Everything from the changes to the landscape and the flooded buildings to the deprivations and new rules made for entertaining reading.
My issue with the book was that I did not realize it involved fantasy, and I am just beyond witches and supernatural powers at this point. This is my fault – I should have checked more carefully before requesting this novel.
I think someone who enjoys reading fantasy – particularly someone who knows New York City – would enjoy this novel.
I felt that the author did a lovely and interesting job of describing NYC post-flood. Everything from the changes to the landscape and the flooded buildings to the deprivations and new rules made for entertaining reading.
My issue with the book was that I did not realize it involved fantasy, and I am just beyond witches and supernatural powers at this point. This is my fault – I should have checked more carefully before requesting this novel.
I think someone who enjoys reading fantasy – particularly someone who knows New York City – would enjoy this novel.
March 18, 2024
A mother and her daughter Silvia (11) arrive at the Morningside, a fine old luxury residence tower, to live with their aunt Ena who is the superintendent for the building. They are displaced people in a war-torn world that is also being destroyed by the floods and fires of climate change. Silvia is fascinated by her aunt's stories of her childhood and the folk tales that enriched it. When Ena claims the three giant dogs owned by the old woman living in the penthouse are really three men turned into dogs by an enchantment, Sil sets out to prove it.
And so we have a different sort of coming-of-age story--a young girl living under mother's thumb but squirming to break free, being led astray by the stronger personality of a new friend and not really understanding the dangers that could be lying in wait. Sil thinks her mother's insistence that they not speak their old language is just plain silly but this new country is not 'all forests and toadstools and magic violins' like in Ena's stories.
Many thanks to the author and publisher for granting me an arc of this new novel through NetGalley. My review is voluntary and the opinions expressed are my own.
And so we have a different sort of coming-of-age story--a young girl living under mother's thumb but squirming to break free, being led astray by the stronger personality of a new friend and not really understanding the dangers that could be lying in wait. Sil thinks her mother's insistence that they not speak their old language is just plain silly but this new country is not 'all forests and toadstools and magic violins' like in Ena's stories.
Many thanks to the author and publisher for granting me an arc of this new novel through NetGalley. My review is voluntary and the opinions expressed are my own.
April 21, 2024
I read The Tiger’s Wife years ago so I like the author’s writing well enough to finish the book but I honestly didn’t get this. It’s a dystopian novel that explores issues of climate change and immigration but there’s also a folk tale woven throughout the narrative. I wasn’t sure what was real and what was the narrator’s imagination. Which might have been the point? I just don’t know.
Thank you to Goodreads Giveaways and Random House for the book.
Thank you to Goodreads Giveaways and Random House for the book.
September 16, 2024
So I can’t lie, from the premise alone, I wasn’t super interested in this book. However, if there’s one thing I’m definitely going to do, it’s read the next Téa Obreht book. So no, I wouldn’t have picked up this book after reading the blurb if anyone else’s name had been on the cover, but sometimes when it’s an author you love, you give them the benefit of the doubt.
Obreht’s proclivity for exploring myth and folklore was on full display here and as always, was wonderfully weaved into and played against the more realistic elements of the novel. Her ability to blend the real and the unreal so well is truly one of her greatest skills and few authors can do it as seamlessly as Obreht. Unfortunately, unlike ‘The Tiger’s Wife’, the framework in which this was placed in ‘The Morningside’ was not quite as well constructed as her previous novels, and so its effect was somewhat diminished for me.
Firstly, I found the setting here to be pretty lacklustre. The idea of this flooded, kind of apocalyptic, slightly Orwellian city is a great concept, but I don’t think it was explored or explained particularly well, or described as beautifully and evocatively as I know Obreht is capable of. The entire backdrop to the story felt a little half baked. Sometimes this can work in a novel’s favour, simply leaving hints and allowing the larger points to be implied, making it feel natural. Here, it instead felt like big elements were simply missing, or mentioned but never explored, making things sometimes feel confused or contradictory. This lack of context made it harder to get a handle on certain aspects of the story, or for them to be as affecting as they may otherwise have been. By the end, as we move away from our primary setting but still are in this world, there were strange things mentioned that seemed incompatible with what I had thought of the setting from everything I had been told. This definitely broke my immersion and made me question what I thought the novel had been showing me until then.
I do almost feel a little harsh. One of the bigger problems I had with Obreht’s last novel ‘Inland’ was how it was sometimes too ambitious, too broad in scope, and often a little too rich in description which sometimes affected it’s pacing. Here, it’s the opposite issue. Obreht’s ambition in terms of ideas is still large but this was not strictly reflected within the story itself and the entire backdrop to it just felt muddy to me. Quite frankly, I could have done without it entirely, and I really do believe the same story would have worked basically just as well set in the real world.
The characters were generally fine, excellent in places but otherwise a bit ordinary and flat. The central relationship between mother and daughter was believable, but kind of rote. It never really came to an emotional climax or evolved interestingly for me. Similarly, our protagonist as a character was never quite as interesting as I wanted her to be and it took a while for me to really feel engaged with her narrative. The less said about the friendly stranger May the better, who really felt like a trope to move the narrative on, cropping up only when most convenient. I’m sure I’m not the only person who immediately knew literally as soon as he appeared in the story. Mila was by far my favourite character, and I enjoyed the differences between her and Silvia which played off against each other extremely well. Their relationship and interactions (and how they interacted with the folklore elements) were probably the highlight of the novel for me.
I suppose because of this I was also just a little disappointed by the end. Not that everything wasn’t wrapped up well, or enough was left ambiguous, there was certainly both in good measure. It’s just that I didn’t feel particularly affected by anything within the story once it had come full circle, nor did I look back on it as a particularly great story, bones alone. I wasn’t left with anything larger beyond the final page.
So I just didn’t really love this, but that isn’t to say that I didn’t like it at all. I still think Obreht is a wonderful writer, and this novel does not cast any aspersions on that despite any weaknesses it may have. Her prose was wonderful as always, and every device or moving part of the story was plausible and logical and moved the story on in a natural, easy way. I just unfortunately didn’t find any of them intriguing enough to really hit me. Really, I remained held by Obreht’s skilled prose and a desire to give the book a good shot because of my opinion of Obreht, but not always by the story’s own merit. Whatever else I think about the novel, the one thing I can say for sure is that for me, this is definitely Obreht’s weakest offering thus far. I hope I enjoy her next one more than I did this.
Obreht’s proclivity for exploring myth and folklore was on full display here and as always, was wonderfully weaved into and played against the more realistic elements of the novel. Her ability to blend the real and the unreal so well is truly one of her greatest skills and few authors can do it as seamlessly as Obreht. Unfortunately, unlike ‘The Tiger’s Wife’, the framework in which this was placed in ‘The Morningside’ was not quite as well constructed as her previous novels, and so its effect was somewhat diminished for me.
Firstly, I found the setting here to be pretty lacklustre. The idea of this flooded, kind of apocalyptic, slightly Orwellian city is a great concept, but I don’t think it was explored or explained particularly well, or described as beautifully and evocatively as I know Obreht is capable of. The entire backdrop to the story felt a little half baked. Sometimes this can work in a novel’s favour, simply leaving hints and allowing the larger points to be implied, making it feel natural. Here, it instead felt like big elements were simply missing, or mentioned but never explored, making things sometimes feel confused or contradictory. This lack of context made it harder to get a handle on certain aspects of the story, or for them to be as affecting as they may otherwise have been. By the end, as we move away from our primary setting but still are in this world, there were strange things mentioned that seemed incompatible with what I had thought of the setting from everything I had been told. This definitely broke my immersion and made me question what I thought the novel had been showing me until then.
I do almost feel a little harsh. One of the bigger problems I had with Obreht’s last novel ‘Inland’ was how it was sometimes too ambitious, too broad in scope, and often a little too rich in description which sometimes affected it’s pacing. Here, it’s the opposite issue. Obreht’s ambition in terms of ideas is still large but this was not strictly reflected within the story itself and the entire backdrop to it just felt muddy to me. Quite frankly, I could have done without it entirely, and I really do believe the same story would have worked basically just as well set in the real world.
The characters were generally fine, excellent in places but otherwise a bit ordinary and flat. The central relationship between mother and daughter was believable, but kind of rote. It never really came to an emotional climax or evolved interestingly for me. Similarly, our protagonist as a character was never quite as interesting as I wanted her to be and it took a while for me to really feel engaged with her narrative. The less said about the friendly stranger May the better, who really felt like a trope to move the narrative on, cropping up only when most convenient. I’m sure I’m not the only person who immediately knew literally as soon as he appeared in the story. Mila was by far my favourite character, and I enjoyed the differences between her and Silvia which played off against each other extremely well. Their relationship and interactions (and how they interacted with the folklore elements) were probably the highlight of the novel for me.
I suppose because of this I was also just a little disappointed by the end. Not that everything wasn’t wrapped up well, or enough was left ambiguous, there was certainly both in good measure. It’s just that I didn’t feel particularly affected by anything within the story once it had come full circle, nor did I look back on it as a particularly great story, bones alone. I wasn’t left with anything larger beyond the final page.
So I just didn’t really love this, but that isn’t to say that I didn’t like it at all. I still think Obreht is a wonderful writer, and this novel does not cast any aspersions on that despite any weaknesses it may have. Her prose was wonderful as always, and every device or moving part of the story was plausible and logical and moved the story on in a natural, easy way. I just unfortunately didn’t find any of them intriguing enough to really hit me. Really, I remained held by Obreht’s skilled prose and a desire to give the book a good shot because of my opinion of Obreht, but not always by the story’s own merit. Whatever else I think about the novel, the one thing I can say for sure is that for me, this is definitely Obreht’s weakest offering thus far. I hope I enjoy her next one more than I did this.
April 24, 2024
This book was not for me. The world building was sparse and disjointed. A drowned city, but no explanation of how or why or what difference it made. The only role it played in the story was a job for the mom. The city is being repopulated by a government program, but the troop people have no jobs, no schools, just automatic rations. The people living in Morningside appear to be the wealthy and their lives continue as normal, except there appears to be no normal, so where are they going, what are they buying? There is a bid to magic that turns out to be naught. There are war crimes all told near the end by backstory, and trial by the court of public opinion. I’m not sure what story th r author was trying to tell, because I never found it.
October 29, 2023
Tea Obreht is a wonderful writer and in this unusual book she does a very good job of using her talent to world-build a dystopian future. By referring to the past oblique fragements the story takes on a mysterious feel which I found very engaging. This is more of a coming of age/mystery novel than a dystopian story but the two aspects work well together. The plot is sublte and paced very well. I recommend you pick this up if you are looking to break out of a reading rut and try something a bit different.
August 25, 2024
This felt very Young Adult to me, with fantasy, magical, and dystopian elements also involved. None of those are genres I especially enjoy, so this is not something I would normally have chosen for myself. I am wondering why I put it on library hold. Must have been the beautiful cover and the author, who I wanted to try. An OK read.
April 2, 2024
"The Morningside" is a creatively brilliant story of the haves and the have nots in a near future dystopian city under water. People living with violence and scarcity are lured by a government promise of a bright future if they will just work hard and due without for a while longer. What could possibly go wrong? I couldn't turn the pages fast enough to find the answers, and the ending was just right.
I received a drc from the publisher via NetGalley.
I received a drc from the publisher via NetGalley.
May 26, 2024
I loved this novel beyond words. It begins with a mysterious scene. A woman is on her way to pick up her mother from the train station. She is filled with dread. She looks up her mother on the forum devoted to her and finds a photo. I, the reader, have no idea what I am reading!
It is the kind of book where the reader has to piece information together as she goes, not really knowing what is going on most of the time. It reminded me of Piranesi by Susanna Clarke.
The Morningside is a 100-year-old residential hotel on Manhattan Island, which in a future time to ours, is slowly becoming smaller as the tides inundate the island. Silvia and her mother arrived when she was 11. They have been refugees from an Eastern European land and have finally been reunited with an aunt by the Repopulation Program. We are in climate change land!
Silvia tells this story from her young unreliable narrator stance as a preteen, but she is observant, hungry for knowledge about her early life, and as resourceful as your favorite characters from middle-grade books. Her Aunt Ena, who manages the building, fills her with tales and superstitions, the kind of tales Tea Obreht is so good at telling.
Ones of the many wonders here is how the telling of the tale made me feel like a refugee entering a place new to me which I had to figure out as I met the characters, found my way around and especially acquired a friend as fascinating yet devious as Silvia’s frenemy Mila.
Just read it!
It is the kind of book where the reader has to piece information together as she goes, not really knowing what is going on most of the time. It reminded me of Piranesi by Susanna Clarke.
The Morningside is a 100-year-old residential hotel on Manhattan Island, which in a future time to ours, is slowly becoming smaller as the tides inundate the island. Silvia and her mother arrived when she was 11. They have been refugees from an Eastern European land and have finally been reunited with an aunt by the Repopulation Program. We are in climate change land!
Silvia tells this story from her young unreliable narrator stance as a preteen, but she is observant, hungry for knowledge about her early life, and as resourceful as your favorite characters from middle-grade books. Her Aunt Ena, who manages the building, fills her with tales and superstitions, the kind of tales Tea Obreht is so good at telling.
Ones of the many wonders here is how the telling of the tale made me feel like a refugee entering a place new to me which I had to figure out as I met the characters, found my way around and especially acquired a friend as fascinating yet devious as Silvia’s frenemy Mila.
Just read it!
April 28, 2024
Uneven. Feels like three different book ideas mashed into one. A solid idea would have been the focus to be on The Dispatcher. Then Sil and Mila’s stories could have been vignettes.
The magic realism was half-hearted. A could or couldn’t be from the perspective of a young teen too eager to believe. Or as if the writer thought a good spin on post apocalyptic fiction would be magic realism. Post apocalyptic fiction feels tired and dead at this point.
The war crimes part was interesting but it felt soldered on.
Climate collapse? A woman who is a mythical creature? A writer stealing a story? War crimes? An immigrant family traveling to someplace with the promise of home? It’s chunky and falls apart. I joke with my kids when they tell stories to think of it like berries in pancakes. Too many berries and the pancakes fall apart. Too much in the story and it falls apart from not having a focus; getting confused.
The magic realism was half-hearted. A could or couldn’t be from the perspective of a young teen too eager to believe. Or as if the writer thought a good spin on post apocalyptic fiction would be magic realism. Post apocalyptic fiction feels tired and dead at this point.
The war crimes part was interesting but it felt soldered on.
Climate collapse? A woman who is a mythical creature? A writer stealing a story? War crimes? An immigrant family traveling to someplace with the promise of home? It’s chunky and falls apart. I joke with my kids when they tell stories to think of it like berries in pancakes. Too many berries and the pancakes fall apart. Too much in the story and it falls apart from not having a focus; getting confused.
October 30, 2024
„Im Morgenlicht“ ist ein Roman, der als Mischung aus Umweltroman, Dystopie und Science Fiction eine dichte, nachdenklich stimmende Atmosphäre schafft. Obwohl die genannten Genres normalerweise nicht meine Favoriten sind, hat mich das Buch mit seinem außergewöhnlichen Aufbau und der tiefgründigen Handlung positiv überrascht.
Anfangs hatte ich Schwierigkeiten, in den Text hineinzufinden – viele Informationen und Details wollen erst einmal entschlüsselt und in Zusammenhang gebracht werden. Doch sobald ich mich eingelesen hatte, nahm mich die Geschichte mit, und das anfängliche Bedürfnis, jeden Satz genau zu analysieren, wich. Die Geschichte dreht sich um die elfjährige Sil und ihre Mutter, die in einer futuristischen, teilweise überfluteten Stadt in einem Wohnkomplex namens „Morgenlicht“ leben. Die dystopische Atmosphäre baut eine fast schon beklemmende Realität auf, die trotz ihrer Science-Fiction-Elemente als erschreckend realistisch erscheint. Es wirkt wie eine kluge Kommentierung unserer Zeit, ein Spiegel dessen, was passieren könnte, wenn die Menschheit ungebremst Ressourcen verschwendet und globale Krisen verharmlost. Besonders gelungen ist die Darstellung der gesellschaftlichen Schichtung: Der Roman macht deutlich, dass Reiche und Mächtige Krisen ganz anders begegnen können als die durchschnittliche Bevölkerung.
Es bleibt bis zum Ende spannend und unvorhersehbar. Ein durchdachtes Buch von der ersten bis zur letzten Seite, das ein besonderes Leseerlebnis bietet!
Anfangs hatte ich Schwierigkeiten, in den Text hineinzufinden – viele Informationen und Details wollen erst einmal entschlüsselt und in Zusammenhang gebracht werden. Doch sobald ich mich eingelesen hatte, nahm mich die Geschichte mit, und das anfängliche Bedürfnis, jeden Satz genau zu analysieren, wich. Die Geschichte dreht sich um die elfjährige Sil und ihre Mutter, die in einer futuristischen, teilweise überfluteten Stadt in einem Wohnkomplex namens „Morgenlicht“ leben. Die dystopische Atmosphäre baut eine fast schon beklemmende Realität auf, die trotz ihrer Science-Fiction-Elemente als erschreckend realistisch erscheint. Es wirkt wie eine kluge Kommentierung unserer Zeit, ein Spiegel dessen, was passieren könnte, wenn die Menschheit ungebremst Ressourcen verschwendet und globale Krisen verharmlost. Besonders gelungen ist die Darstellung der gesellschaftlichen Schichtung: Der Roman macht deutlich, dass Reiche und Mächtige Krisen ganz anders begegnen können als die durchschnittliche Bevölkerung.
Es bleibt bis zum Ende spannend und unvorhersehbar. Ein durchdachtes Buch von der ersten bis zur letzten Seite, das ein besonderes Leseerlebnis bietet!
September 11, 2026
this was truly all over the place and somehow still couldn’t keep my attention
April 11, 2025
A literary post-apocalyptic story that doesn’t quite gel, though it was interesting enough to finish. I wrote off the low average rating because everything Obreht writes gets that and I still enjoyed The Tiger’s Wife. But in this case I agree with it.
The story follows the narrator, Silvia (Sil) as she reminisces about events that occurred when she was 11 years old and moved with her mother to a partially-submerged city through the rather ominously-named Repopulation Program. Sil bonds with her newly-discovered aunt, who tells her folklore from the old country; becomes obsessed with an eccentric woman living nearby, whom she suspects of being a Vila; and befriends a bolder girl who tramples the rules in an attempt to root out the neighbor’s secrets.
It's an interesting setup, but not one that turns into a compelling story. For much of the novel, there are no real stakes, as what plot there is simply revolves around a bored but curious child stalking her neighbor. The complex format of The Tiger’s Wife perhaps played more to Obreht’s strengths than this conventional, chronological structure. Sil is a generic protagonist, whose first-person narration does nothing to distinguish her from any other standard-issue narrator. The supporting characters are more distinct and interesting, but Obreht’s writing never fully brings them to life. The post-apocalyptic setting is vaguely sketched, though that’s all the story requires. The prose is strong, but not memorably so. At least the ending is good, and had me more engaged than the rest of the book. And the theme of immigration in times of war and disruption is interesting and well-handled, though the adults’ withholding of information means it’s only at the end that Sil or the reader grasps what’s really going on.
In the end, I’m neither excited about this nor annoyed by it. Read it if it sounds like your thing, I suppose.
The story follows the narrator, Silvia (Sil) as she reminisces about events that occurred when she was 11 years old and moved with her mother to a partially-submerged city through the rather ominously-named Repopulation Program. Sil bonds with her newly-discovered aunt, who tells her folklore from the old country; becomes obsessed with an eccentric woman living nearby, whom she suspects of being a Vila; and befriends a bolder girl who tramples the rules in an attempt to root out the neighbor’s secrets.
It's an interesting setup, but not one that turns into a compelling story. For much of the novel, there are no real stakes, as what plot there is simply revolves around a bored but curious child stalking her neighbor. The complex format of The Tiger’s Wife perhaps played more to Obreht’s strengths than this conventional, chronological structure. Sil is a generic protagonist, whose first-person narration does nothing to distinguish her from any other standard-issue narrator. The supporting characters are more distinct and interesting, but Obreht’s writing never fully brings them to life. The post-apocalyptic setting is vaguely sketched, though that’s all the story requires. The prose is strong, but not memorably so. At least the ending is good, and had me more engaged than the rest of the book. And the theme of immigration in times of war and disruption is interesting and well-handled, though the adults’ withholding of information means it’s only at the end that Sil or the reader grasps what’s really going on.
In the end, I’m neither excited about this nor annoyed by it. Read it if it sounds like your thing, I suppose.
August 13, 2023
This is one of the most unusual and strange books I have ever read. It is a novel of the future, but it is not science fiction, it is about artists with mystical powers and dogs that are really transformed children, but it is not fantasy. Whatever it is, this is a hypnotic and beautifully written novel about a young girl and her mother, refugees from some southern country, who come to live with a relative in a formerly luxurious high rise building in a partially drowned city which could (or could not0 be New York.
There is a woman in the penthouse, an artist, who might (or might not) be a Vila, a mythical creature who lives in the heights above a village and demands sacrifices from those whom she guards. We never really find out for sure if Ms. Duras is one, or do we?
Silvia, or Sil as she is called, is an intelligent and hard-working pre-adolescent child who supports her mother, who works, at first, as Superintendent of The Morningside, this high rise (wherever it is). She leaves Sil to perform the superintendent job to earn more money by becoming a salvage diver deep below the underwater city buildings. Sil is later befriended by a local writer and later by a new girl, Mila who is braver and more adventuresome than Sil.
Readers of The Deluge or The Heat Will Kill You First will see here the results of global warming in frightening detail (not so far from our own current reality), but this novel will chill you as it fascinates you and leaves you thinking for a long time after you close the last page.
.
Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for this early copy.
There is a woman in the penthouse, an artist, who might (or might not) be a Vila, a mythical creature who lives in the heights above a village and demands sacrifices from those whom she guards. We never really find out for sure if Ms. Duras is one, or do we?
Silvia, or Sil as she is called, is an intelligent and hard-working pre-adolescent child who supports her mother, who works, at first, as Superintendent of The Morningside, this high rise (wherever it is). She leaves Sil to perform the superintendent job to earn more money by becoming a salvage diver deep below the underwater city buildings. Sil is later befriended by a local writer and later by a new girl, Mila who is braver and more adventuresome than Sil.
Readers of The Deluge or The Heat Will Kill You First will see here the results of global warming in frightening detail (not so far from our own current reality), but this novel will chill you as it fascinates you and leaves you thinking for a long time after you close the last page.
.
Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for this early copy.
April 1, 2024
I tend to avoid dystopian novels, I find a sameness to them all, and anyway we’re living in that dystopian future so why spend my time reading about it. This one, though, is different. Dystopian, yes, with migrants and immigrants and wars that have torn people apart, water-logged, and more, but hope runs through it, as does folklore, magical realism, and an engaging narrator, 11 or 12 when the narrator, Silvia, comes to the building called The Morningside, on a city island that might be Manhattan, with her mother, the two of them having survived war in their own country. Captivating.
Thanks to Random House and Netgalley for the ARC.
Thanks to Random House and Netgalley for the ARC.
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