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The Expert of Subtle Revisions
AN NPR BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR • A thrilling historical mystery about a young woman searching for her father, a young man trying to solve an impossible problem, and the quest for the power to transcend time.
“From Vienna to San Francisco, I was swept away by this fascinating search for family and for answers.”—Janet Skeslien Charles, New York Times bestselling author of The Paris Library and Miss Morgan’s Book Brigade
In Half Moon Bay, California, 2016, a young woman waits for her father's sailboat to arrive at port. They have agreed to meet on this day and time. Yet he never shows.
He has told her this event might come. And if it did, she was ready. Go to the library in Berkeley, find a certain book, follow the instructions. But what if the instructions lead to more questions than answers?
In 1933, a young man arrives in Vienna to begin a new post as a professor of mathematics at the university. There he finds himself part of the Engelhardt Circle, a group of intellectuals that have recently been targeted by a growing, anti-academic mob. The circle includes the preeminent minds of their time and a cast of characters desperate to get invited into their midst, many of whom will stop at nothing to get there. As fascism rises, and polarization increases, moderate voices are drowned out.
There are whispers of a machine, a music box, which can transport someone through time. But no one can confirm if it's a rumor or true. And the only people who know firsthand are not talking.
Between the young woman, who lives off the grid and spends her free time editing Wikipedia entries and picking fights with people online, and the circle of intellectuals debating space and time in Vienna on the eve of World War II, lie years of history that might easily be erased—unless old secrets are unraveled. Kirsten Menger-Anderson's beautiful meditation on time, love, and obsession shows us how we never truly know what happened in the past, and often how the past eerily mirrors the future.
“From Vienna to San Francisco, I was swept away by this fascinating search for family and for answers.”—Janet Skeslien Charles, New York Times bestselling author of The Paris Library and Miss Morgan’s Book Brigade
In Half Moon Bay, California, 2016, a young woman waits for her father's sailboat to arrive at port. They have agreed to meet on this day and time. Yet he never shows.
He has told her this event might come. And if it did, she was ready. Go to the library in Berkeley, find a certain book, follow the instructions. But what if the instructions lead to more questions than answers?
In 1933, a young man arrives in Vienna to begin a new post as a professor of mathematics at the university. There he finds himself part of the Engelhardt Circle, a group of intellectuals that have recently been targeted by a growing, anti-academic mob. The circle includes the preeminent minds of their time and a cast of characters desperate to get invited into their midst, many of whom will stop at nothing to get there. As fascism rises, and polarization increases, moderate voices are drowned out.
There are whispers of a machine, a music box, which can transport someone through time. But no one can confirm if it's a rumor or true. And the only people who know firsthand are not talking.
Between the young woman, who lives off the grid and spends her free time editing Wikipedia entries and picking fights with people online, and the circle of intellectuals debating space and time in Vienna on the eve of World War II, lie years of history that might easily be erased—unless old secrets are unraveled. Kirsten Menger-Anderson's beautiful meditation on time, love, and obsession shows us how we never truly know what happened in the past, and often how the past eerily mirrors the future.
247 pages, Kindle Edition
First published March 18, 2025
114 people are currently reading
11566 people want to read
About the author
Kirsten Menger-Anderson
2 books58 followersKirsten Menger-Anderson is the author of Doctor Olaf van Schuler's Brain, a collection of short stories that was a finalist for the Northern California Book Award in fiction and one of Time Out Chicago's top ten books of the year. Her stories and essays have appeared in publications including Ploughshares, the Southwest Review, LitHub, and Undark. She currently lives in San Francisco with her family. Her debut novel The Expert of Subtle Revisions is forthcoming from Crown on March 18, 2025.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 233 reviews
June 28, 2025
I feel decidedly neutral about this book.
It's an odd feeling. I feel like I should like it more, because there are things to like. Starting with the title, followed by the cover (which is designed like a Wikipedia article -- Wikipedia is featured more often than you'd imagine in this story). Then there's the intriguing premise, starring an off-grid (yet highly educated) father/daughter pair. The father, a brilliant Viennese mathematician, who lives a mysterious and secluded life on a boat, goes missing.
The writing is something to like too. I don't have complaints on a sentence by sentence level. There are shifts in point of view, and shifts in time, and while that requires a certain amount of adjustment on the reader's part, I was on board for it. After all, 1930s Vienna, with a focus on a select intellectual circle, is a precarious world, a dangerous one, and also sophisticated and sumptuous. I didn't mind jumping back to that time again and again.
There's the time traveling element. Yes, math turned into a magical music box time machine in these pages - a rather large leap that the reader has to simply accept. The making of the box is never explained, and it introduces a level of artificiality that I didn't love, and once it was there, the "taut mystery" I was promised by the book's description was really not all that taut after all. I mean, if a guy is missing in a time travel book, gee, I wonder where he could be...
I wasn't really all that grumpy with the time travelling. I'm not actually grumpy about this book, but I also don't feel excited about it, either. Maybe it's the somewhat detachedness of the main character, Hase. Maybe because I didn't find a lot of substance behind the story. Maybe because I felt like it became more and more artificial as it went on, the ending quite unbelievable to me. I don't know.
Equal parts fine and not my thing, if I describe the book in mathematical terms, I'd say for me, it is a zero sum game.
It's an odd feeling. I feel like I should like it more, because there are things to like. Starting with the title, followed by the cover (which is designed like a Wikipedia article -- Wikipedia is featured more often than you'd imagine in this story). Then there's the intriguing premise, starring an off-grid (yet highly educated) father/daughter pair. The father, a brilliant Viennese mathematician, who lives a mysterious and secluded life on a boat, goes missing.
The writing is something to like too. I don't have complaints on a sentence by sentence level. There are shifts in point of view, and shifts in time, and while that requires a certain amount of adjustment on the reader's part, I was on board for it. After all, 1930s Vienna, with a focus on a select intellectual circle, is a precarious world, a dangerous one, and also sophisticated and sumptuous. I didn't mind jumping back to that time again and again.
There's the time traveling element. Yes, math turned into a magical music box time machine in these pages - a rather large leap that the reader has to simply accept. The making of the box is never explained, and it introduces a level of artificiality that I didn't love, and once it was there, the "taut mystery" I was promised by the book's description was really not all that taut after all. I mean, if a guy is missing in a time travel book, gee, I wonder where he could be...
I wasn't really all that grumpy with the time travelling. I'm not actually grumpy about this book, but I also don't feel excited about it, either. Maybe it's the somewhat detachedness of the main character, Hase. Maybe because I didn't find a lot of substance behind the story. Maybe because I felt like it became more and more artificial as it went on, the ending quite unbelievable to me. I don't know.
Equal parts fine and not my thing, if I describe the book in mathematical terms, I'd say for me, it is a zero sum game.
November 14, 2025
A book that has the most gorgeous cover of the year for me, reflecting both Egon Schiele his art, Vienna, and Wikipedia, all essential to the plot
Technology has so many edges he says, it is hard to say who is wielding it and who is bleeding
While reading this novel I was at times reminded of The Ministry of Time (which similarly uses an unexplained time travel trope as a basis), The Safekeep (with the suppressed queer desires and WWII as a major theme) and the writing of Emily St John Mandel. We follow three storylines, Hase (German for hare) in 2016 and Anton and Josef in 1930s Vienna. In the first three chapters there is a lot of tell instead of show, with Hase as a woman waiting on her father to sail in on her birthday. The novel even feels DaVinci Code in the opening scenes, with a search through Wikipedia articles (editing of which Hase and her father both find soothing, and acts as a broader metaphor in respect to narrative and remembering, explicitly signified by: Missing text is often more fascinating than the words that remain, a reminder that history is both written and erased) and a mysterious cult being hot on the heels of the narrator.
I distinctly liked the Viennese chapters more, which feature the complexity of living in a society sliding into dictatorship. Interesting how much of the Vienna parts are based on real events in the diary of the grandfather of the author. Josef, being a full on Karen with a generous dash of Nazi, is unlikeable, even though his family falling from grace in a fracturing Austria Hungary is an interesting angle. Anton meanwhile struggles with queer desires which are literally lethal in the powder keg of Vienna. Emigration of academics out of Vienna in these sections due to an unfriendly climate hits different after the current US administration bearing down on Harvard.
It is interesting what time-travel would mean for agency and free will, which is definitely also an interesting thread throughout the latter parts of the novel.
Technology has so many edges he says, it is hard to say who is wielding it and who is bleeding
While reading this novel I was at times reminded of The Ministry of Time (which similarly uses an unexplained time travel trope as a basis), The Safekeep (with the suppressed queer desires and WWII as a major theme) and the writing of Emily St John Mandel. We follow three storylines, Hase (German for hare) in 2016 and Anton and Josef in 1930s Vienna. In the first three chapters there is a lot of tell instead of show, with Hase as a woman waiting on her father to sail in on her birthday. The novel even feels DaVinci Code in the opening scenes, with a search through Wikipedia articles (editing of which Hase and her father both find soothing, and acts as a broader metaphor in respect to narrative and remembering, explicitly signified by: Missing text is often more fascinating than the words that remain, a reminder that history is both written and erased) and a mysterious cult being hot on the heels of the narrator.
I distinctly liked the Viennese chapters more, which feature the complexity of living in a society sliding into dictatorship. Interesting how much of the Vienna parts are based on real events in the diary of the grandfather of the author. Josef, being a full on Karen with a generous dash of Nazi, is unlikeable, even though his family falling from grace in a fracturing Austria Hungary is an interesting angle. Anton meanwhile struggles with queer desires which are literally lethal in the powder keg of Vienna. Emigration of academics out of Vienna in these sections due to an unfriendly climate hits different after the current US administration bearing down on Harvard.
It is interesting what time-travel would mean for agency and free will, which is definitely also an interesting thread throughout the latter parts of the novel.
April 15, 2025
An outstanding and fascinating book. I pretty much loved this book the moment I started it. So fresh and unusual. A story told with real feeling. I cannot say enough good things about it.
It did get very weird very quickly. In the beginning we had Hase and although it was odd it was engrossing. Then we suddenly started moving through different people (Anton, Josef, Haskell, Harriet, Katarina, etc.) and through different time periods and I became quite confused and was unsure of what was going on. Then about three quarters of the way through the book it all came together, but it was still a unusual concept.
After reading it am I paranoid now or what? Meantime I found the music box and I think I must have wound it because I am not now where I think I was when I had it in my hands. I don’t know where I am, and I don’t know anyone here and no one knows me but I know that they are coming for me so I must get away before they find me
What a read it was.
Thank you to Goodreads and Crown Books for the ARC of the novel.
It did get very weird very quickly. In the beginning we had Hase and although it was odd it was engrossing. Then we suddenly started moving through different people (Anton, Josef, Haskell, Harriet, Katarina, etc.) and through different time periods and I became quite confused and was unsure of what was going on. Then about three quarters of the way through the book it all came together, but it was still a unusual concept.
After reading it am I paranoid now or what? Meantime I found the music box and I think I must have wound it because I am not now where I think I was when I had it in my hands. I don’t know where I am, and I don’t know anyone here and no one knows me but I know that they are coming for me so I must get away before they find me
What a read it was.
Thank you to Goodreads and Crown Books for the ARC of the novel.
January 19, 2025
click here for my spotify playlist🕰️🎼✨
this book is for you if you like alone with you in the ether, the invisible life of addie larue, the starless sea but most especially if you enjoyed CLOUD CUCKOO LAND.
you guys know that i'm a sucker for a good concept (or a kickass cover, in this case) so when i found this on netgalley i immediately hit that request button, thinking i wouldn't get a chance to review this early......but the earc gods were with me and i feel so lucky to have gotten ahold of this in advance.
honestly the real reason this drew me in, other than the GENIUS cover art, is that it reminded me a lot of one of my favorite books cloud cuckoo land. i knew it wouldn't be quite the same, but i love books that have a present day pov and a historic pov - maybe because it evens out the historical fiction with some contemporary vibes? and admittedly, i forgot the entire synopsis when i finally got around to reading this so it made it very difficult to understand at first. but i was so taken with how quickly this book moves. it's easy to get sucked in, and even though it's confusing and it takes a while for the pieces to start to slot into place, it's so compelling and well-written. i love how unique the voice is, how strange the characters are, how original the concept is. but because it's metalit, it was a very precarious first half. i spent a long time just trying to figure out what the hell all the POVs have to do with each other.
metalit is such a fun genre because it's often about the puzzle and the journey moreso than the characters or the conclusion. i can sit through a lot of bizarro shit because it's trying something, but ultimately the best metalit books are the ones that stick the landing. and so i spent almost 75% of this book thinking there was no way all of it would fit together, that it was way too short (i do still stand by this) and that the author could not pull of this weird magnificent idea.......but ladies and gents and enbies and friends....that absolute madman did it.
okay, i don't know. i do think the ending was a little abstract and the thing that could be frustrating to some people is that we don't get a lot of explanation about...all of it. this is the kind of book that lives in the Vague and so if you're someone who likes concrete endings and conclusions and explanations, it might not live up to your expectations. but i think the author is exploring something so real and important, and getting to watch it unfold the way it did was like watching a rose in bloom. once i figured out what was happening, i felt like my mind was exploding. it was subtle (ha) but also it really hits you over the head with everything and i think it just worked for me!
and we can't not mention the inherent queerness of this insane book...i will be thinking about it for a long long time honestly.
i really love that this is inspired by the author's own grandfather too. reading the acknowledgments is one of my favorite things, and i was so taken with her explanation of the inspiration.
idk! i kind of knew this was going to be a personal favorite, but it's so nice when that feeling works out. my intuition was correct!!! this is metalit at its best!!!! it speaks on love and family and queerness and WIKIPEDIA my beloved!!!!! most people won't get it but I DO and that's what's important!!!!!
this book is for you if you like alone with you in the ether, the invisible life of addie larue, the starless sea but most especially if you enjoyed CLOUD CUCKOO LAND.
you guys know that i'm a sucker for a good concept (or a kickass cover, in this case) so when i found this on netgalley i immediately hit that request button, thinking i wouldn't get a chance to review this early......but the earc gods were with me and i feel so lucky to have gotten ahold of this in advance.
honestly the real reason this drew me in, other than the GENIUS cover art, is that it reminded me a lot of one of my favorite books cloud cuckoo land. i knew it wouldn't be quite the same, but i love books that have a present day pov and a historic pov - maybe because it evens out the historical fiction with some contemporary vibes? and admittedly, i forgot the entire synopsis when i finally got around to reading this so it made it very difficult to understand at first. but i was so taken with how quickly this book moves. it's easy to get sucked in, and even though it's confusing and it takes a while for the pieces to start to slot into place, it's so compelling and well-written. i love how unique the voice is, how strange the characters are, how original the concept is. but because it's metalit, it was a very precarious first half. i spent a long time just trying to figure out what the hell all the POVs have to do with each other.
metalit is such a fun genre because it's often about the puzzle and the journey moreso than the characters or the conclusion. i can sit through a lot of bizarro shit because it's trying something, but ultimately the best metalit books are the ones that stick the landing. and so i spent almost 75% of this book thinking there was no way all of it would fit together, that it was way too short (i do still stand by this) and that the author could not pull of this weird magnificent idea.......but ladies and gents and enbies and friends....that absolute madman did it.
okay, i don't know. i do think the ending was a little abstract and the thing that could be frustrating to some people is that we don't get a lot of explanation about...all of it. this is the kind of book that lives in the Vague and so if you're someone who likes concrete endings and conclusions and explanations, it might not live up to your expectations. but i think the author is exploring something so real and important, and getting to watch it unfold the way it did was like watching a rose in bloom. once i figured out what was happening, i felt like my mind was exploding. it was subtle (ha) but also it really hits you over the head with everything and i think it just worked for me!
and we can't not mention the inherent queerness of this insane book...i will be thinking about it for a long long time honestly.
i really love that this is inspired by the author's own grandfather too. reading the acknowledgments is one of my favorite things, and i was so taken with her explanation of the inspiration.
idk! i kind of knew this was going to be a personal favorite, but it's so nice when that feeling works out. my intuition was correct!!! this is metalit at its best!!!! it speaks on love and family and queerness and WIKIPEDIA my beloved!!!!! most people won't get it but I DO and that's what's important!!!!!
July 4, 2025
The only reason I finished this book was because it was easy, short, and I kept expecting it to pay off. If you are like me and struggle to enjoy time travel books, suggest you move onto a different one. This one was less interesting than it pretends to be. It had a lot of potential, but it ultimately falls far short. Could've been a better mystery. Could've been an epic romance. Could've been a huge aha. Missed on ask three counts.
August 14, 2024
*insert Charlie Day conspiracy board meme*
THIS. BOOK. IS. SO. GOOD.
Seriously, the prose is stunning (“History is not neutral…Language, too, is never neutral.” *shrieking pterodactyl noises*) and the characters are fully realized, flawed, messy, introspective, and funny in their own right. Usually I find multiple POVs challenging in that oftentimes the voices are too similar or overlap but Kirsten is clearly a master - Hase, Anton, and Josef each have their own unique voice that shines off the page! I read this in less than 24hrs. I cackled, I gasped, I shook the galley as if that would undo the villainy unfolding, and Reader? I wrote in the margins. I know! I know. It’s not often that I annotate a work of fiction but the through lines, the way the three arcs are woven together, I couldn’t resist! Absolutely brilliant book and I cannot wait to shove this book into everyone’s hands and hover over their shoulders until they, too, can geek out with me.
It’s smart, it’s funny, it’s heartfelt; it’s historical fiction and speculative fiction and sci-fi and there’s a queer love story and found family and complex family dynamics. This book has something for everyone and Kirsten Menger-Anderson balances it all brilliantly. I can’t say enough good things about this book!
Disclaimer: I received early access to a galley but be sure to pre-order or pick it up when it hits shelves Spring 2025!
THIS. BOOK. IS. SO. GOOD.
Seriously, the prose is stunning (“History is not neutral…Language, too, is never neutral.” *shrieking pterodactyl noises*) and the characters are fully realized, flawed, messy, introspective, and funny in their own right. Usually I find multiple POVs challenging in that oftentimes the voices are too similar or overlap but Kirsten is clearly a master - Hase, Anton, and Josef each have their own unique voice that shines off the page! I read this in less than 24hrs. I cackled, I gasped, I shook the galley as if that would undo the villainy unfolding, and Reader? I wrote in the margins. I know! I know. It’s not often that I annotate a work of fiction but the through lines, the way the three arcs are woven together, I couldn’t resist! Absolutely brilliant book and I cannot wait to shove this book into everyone’s hands and hover over their shoulders until they, too, can geek out with me.
It’s smart, it’s funny, it’s heartfelt; it’s historical fiction and speculative fiction and sci-fi and there’s a queer love story and found family and complex family dynamics. This book has something for everyone and Kirsten Menger-Anderson balances it all brilliantly. I can’t say enough good things about this book!
Disclaimer: I received early access to a galley but be sure to pre-order or pick it up when it hits shelves Spring 2025!
March 11, 2025
I received this ARC from Netgalley in exchange for a fair review.
A layered blend of historical fiction, sci-fi, and literary fiction, The Expert of Subtle Revisions is as clever as it is engrossing.
The cover is what drew me to this book, and it has complete relevance to the story. In truth, this is a time travel paradox novel, as the blurb said, but how it plays out is intricate and less about the mechanics of the device/process than the impact it has on the relationships between the characters. It’s a mystery with intricate clues, surprising connections, and a satisfying result.
The novel follows three perspectives: Hase, Anton, and Joseph. Hase is in the near-present, and then the two men are in Vienna leading up to WWII. The rise of fascism in the interim war period is an important aspect of the story (both plot-wise and thematically), and the author provides a good deal of context (though it might be helpful if you go into the story knowing a bit about politics/society in this era).
Yet, even if this hadn’t been so well-wrought, the characters would have carried it quite easily. They are fantastic. Hase is a very strange individual with odd hobbies and deep introversion, yet she isn’t shy or scared or whatever stereotype generally applies to those who prefer to live on the outskirts of society. I adored her right from the start - I love quirky, weird characters. And then we have the boys (who grow into men); one who is heartbreakingly likeable and the other who is quite awful, but in a way that is very human, and he is such due to a mix of circumstance and personal failing (he’s a complex villain). I will say, for the first little bit, I got Anton and Joseph confused, but in retrospect, I think their similarities had a purpose, one going back to how society shapes us.
Everyone in this story is not happy, or they are suffering from something (whether societal, existential, tangible, or all three), yet the book carries with it a lightness, a sense of hope.
The book is also extremely well-balanced - there are moments of humour, tender romance, tension, and mystery. I was entranced the entire time.
The writing is also lovely, with beautiful turns of phrase and artful descriptions.
The conclusion is absolutely stunning. It’s not so much an explanation or a twist (I mean, there are a few) as a turn of events, and that in itself made the main trope (the only thing about this that makes it even remotely sci-fi) work. It’s very hard to make time travel work without holes, but this book pulls it off.
This is a strange, thoughtful, unique book I will think about for a long time and will delight in re-reading again.
A layered blend of historical fiction, sci-fi, and literary fiction, The Expert of Subtle Revisions is as clever as it is engrossing.
The cover is what drew me to this book, and it has complete relevance to the story. In truth, this is a time travel paradox novel, as the blurb said, but how it plays out is intricate and less about the mechanics of the device/process than the impact it has on the relationships between the characters. It’s a mystery with intricate clues, surprising connections, and a satisfying result.
The novel follows three perspectives: Hase, Anton, and Joseph. Hase is in the near-present, and then the two men are in Vienna leading up to WWII. The rise of fascism in the interim war period is an important aspect of the story (both plot-wise and thematically), and the author provides a good deal of context (though it might be helpful if you go into the story knowing a bit about politics/society in this era).
Yet, even if this hadn’t been so well-wrought, the characters would have carried it quite easily. They are fantastic. Hase is a very strange individual with odd hobbies and deep introversion, yet she isn’t shy or scared or whatever stereotype generally applies to those who prefer to live on the outskirts of society. I adored her right from the start - I love quirky, weird characters. And then we have the boys (who grow into men); one who is heartbreakingly likeable and the other who is quite awful, but in a way that is very human, and he is such due to a mix of circumstance and personal failing (he’s a complex villain). I will say, for the first little bit, I got Anton and Joseph confused, but in retrospect, I think their similarities had a purpose, one going back to how society shapes us.
Everyone in this story is not happy, or they are suffering from something (whether societal, existential, tangible, or all three), yet the book carries with it a lightness, a sense of hope.
The book is also extremely well-balanced - there are moments of humour, tender romance, tension, and mystery. I was entranced the entire time.
The writing is also lovely, with beautiful turns of phrase and artful descriptions.
The conclusion is absolutely stunning. It’s not so much an explanation or a twist (I mean, there are a few) as a turn of events, and that in itself made the main trope (the only thing about this that makes it even remotely sci-fi) work. It’s very hard to make time travel work without holes, but this book pulls it off.
This is a strange, thoughtful, unique book I will think about for a long time and will delight in re-reading again.
April 5, 2025
Time travel! I always say time travel doesn’t work, and it doesn’t. It does not work. You cannot make it work, there will always be some tangle in the wires that breaks the book when you decide to actually think about it. But I read a lot of time travel anyway, and in this case, the device (though a physical music box) is more a device of ideas than of practicalities. In terms of ideas, this book is a wealth: fascism, family, mathematics, the erasure of women, love. How Menger-Anderson handles each theme varies in the quality of its delivery, but there’s plenty to dissect.
The short: split initially between two time periods, the book follows Hase–a young, off the grid woman living in 2016 San Francisco, editing Wikipedia, and searching for her odd, boat-dwelling father–and two men connected to a circle of intellectuals in 1933-5 Austria. One is Anton Moritz–a closeted gay professor of mathematics taking a new job in Vienna–and the other is Josef Zedlacher–a mean-minded failure of the academy who waits tables while his ambitions simmer poisonously inside him. Twining between these three narrators is Haskell Gaul, an angelically curly-haired mystery gay and math genius who seems to be traveling through time using a music box he created. He wants to “fix” what this time travel has done to his own life and others’. He wants Anton’s brilliant help to do it. Josef, wanting the world, sees the destruction of these people as the key to his ambitions. And, bearing his name nearly a century later, there is the Zedlacher Institute, which sustains the late Josef’s fanatical desire to destroy them, to own their work, to rise above everyone he sees.
And here is the fascism: what is fascism, embraced by a culture, but also encapsulated by a single man? The dreadful creep of violence, anti-intellectualism, and the original Nazis through 1930s Austria brings a chill and a ticking clock to the historical portions of the story, but fascism is exemplified just as effectively in the covetous, profoundly selfish mindset of Josef Zedlacher. Not every writer understands the critical link between a man who says in his small ways “this research is owed to me because I want it” “this woman who is not as I want her to be is what I want” “this server must understand that he is beneath me” “this disappointment I suffer must be transformed into someone else’s ruin” and nationalistic, authoritarian mass movements. Sometimes Josef is, as a character, wielded too coarsely, but I admire the decision to allow his insidious narration to wedge its way between sections narrated by essentially decent people. As a recollection of grim history and an examination of internal mechanisms that still transform hideous individuals into ruined countries, it does its job.
The love: there are moments of great poignancy in the romance of this book, which you can tell by the process of elimination is between the homosexual math geniuses, Anton and Haskell. In certain moments this is doing exactly what I wish some of the romance novels I’ve been reading lately would buckle down and do. The tragic strain of a world that doesn’t allow you, the chemistry, the sense of urgency and lightness and genius that comes along with falling in love, the way physical and intellectual desire can intertwine–it’s so damn romantic. I am also horrifically romantic, so that element worked wonderfully for me. I noticed when I was midway through the book that one reader review calls it “light” romance–but in fact, it drives the entire plot. It drives Anton and Haskell, it drives the furious Josef, it drives Hase to her present life and into her ultimate choices. Not only that, but it’s hard for me to accept “light” as a descriptor for “being gay in 1935 Vienna.” The path forward in that scenario is not clear and it is very hard and sharp.
The erasure of women: the jacket copy very boldly uses this phrase, “the erasure of women from history” as a front and center element of the book. Menger-Anderson, I admit, does end there, and threads it throughout, and gives us Hase as the first and last voice of the story, but she spends a lot of time in the middle showing you this erasure by focusing on men. The female characters are excellent characters, but other than Hase they are shunted to the back row, in large part so that the author can hit you in the last chapters with a “see? see? you also forgot about women!”
But I didn’t, though–I understood from the beginning that Fraulein Popovic, who you see doesn’t even show up until this far into my review–was pivotal, central, essential, a point around which the whole plot spins. Most of the ways in which this is true are spoilers, which makes it hard to describe how utterly important she is. But I notice, reading review after review in professional journals, that no one spares a single word to mention her. Not her name, not even without her name. On the one hand you might think, “But that’s the point! Women are pivotal and still forgotten!” On the other hand, I might say that if the point was very *well* made, at least one reviewer would have felt they couldn’t complete their assignment without telling us she exists.
This point of women’s erasure is also made by and through Hase, who wrests control from men at the end of the novel - spoilers, spoilers again - to make her own path. But I am not satisfied with her path, and it feels very easy to say, “But she gains autonomy and chooses her course!” I don’t know. It sits crookedly with me. She makes a hard decision and it’s unclear who actually benefits from it. I’m inclined to think that the beneficiary is not Hase at all–it’s still the men. She is an odd, memorable, decisive, impossible character, but when the first few chapters swerve hard into Anton’s story of 80 years earlier, it feels like she’s been cut off mid-sentence and shoved to the side. That change is so abrupt and jarring, and in the end even though she’s the one who’s speaking I still feel like she is being pushed to the side, and still for Anton’s story.
Despite the disjointure, despite my qualms about the execution of theme and the fate of Hase, despite occasional dropped threads and the fact that having a time-traveling music box at the crux of your novel feels so J.J. Abrams’ Alias (2001-2006) that I could cry, I overwhelmingly am glad I read this book. It’s meaty, it’s thought-provoking, it has a quiet tension that urges you to see how things play out. It is odd and idea-driven and sentimental without being safe. It’s got beautiful prose. It has honestly taught me so much about Wikipedia. It reminds me that we never know our parents and that being able to perceive them fully is a terrifying gift and curse, worth handling tenderly if you can handle it at all. It makes me think we should get rid of our phones. It makes me think that there are good things in dark places.
The short: split initially between two time periods, the book follows Hase–a young, off the grid woman living in 2016 San Francisco, editing Wikipedia, and searching for her odd, boat-dwelling father–and two men connected to a circle of intellectuals in 1933-5 Austria. One is Anton Moritz–a closeted gay professor of mathematics taking a new job in Vienna–and the other is Josef Zedlacher–a mean-minded failure of the academy who waits tables while his ambitions simmer poisonously inside him. Twining between these three narrators is Haskell Gaul, an angelically curly-haired mystery gay and math genius who seems to be traveling through time using a music box he created. He wants to “fix” what this time travel has done to his own life and others’. He wants Anton’s brilliant help to do it. Josef, wanting the world, sees the destruction of these people as the key to his ambitions. And, bearing his name nearly a century later, there is the Zedlacher Institute, which sustains the late Josef’s fanatical desire to destroy them, to own their work, to rise above everyone he sees.
And here is the fascism: what is fascism, embraced by a culture, but also encapsulated by a single man? The dreadful creep of violence, anti-intellectualism, and the original Nazis through 1930s Austria brings a chill and a ticking clock to the historical portions of the story, but fascism is exemplified just as effectively in the covetous, profoundly selfish mindset of Josef Zedlacher. Not every writer understands the critical link between a man who says in his small ways “this research is owed to me because I want it” “this woman who is not as I want her to be is what I want” “this server must understand that he is beneath me” “this disappointment I suffer must be transformed into someone else’s ruin” and nationalistic, authoritarian mass movements. Sometimes Josef is, as a character, wielded too coarsely, but I admire the decision to allow his insidious narration to wedge its way between sections narrated by essentially decent people. As a recollection of grim history and an examination of internal mechanisms that still transform hideous individuals into ruined countries, it does its job.
The love: there are moments of great poignancy in the romance of this book, which you can tell by the process of elimination is between the homosexual math geniuses, Anton and Haskell. In certain moments this is doing exactly what I wish some of the romance novels I’ve been reading lately would buckle down and do. The tragic strain of a world that doesn’t allow you, the chemistry, the sense of urgency and lightness and genius that comes along with falling in love, the way physical and intellectual desire can intertwine–it’s so damn romantic. I am also horrifically romantic, so that element worked wonderfully for me. I noticed when I was midway through the book that one reader review calls it “light” romance–but in fact, it drives the entire plot. It drives Anton and Haskell, it drives the furious Josef, it drives Hase to her present life and into her ultimate choices. Not only that, but it’s hard for me to accept “light” as a descriptor for “being gay in 1935 Vienna.” The path forward in that scenario is not clear and it is very hard and sharp.
The erasure of women: the jacket copy very boldly uses this phrase, “the erasure of women from history” as a front and center element of the book. Menger-Anderson, I admit, does end there, and threads it throughout, and gives us Hase as the first and last voice of the story, but she spends a lot of time in the middle showing you this erasure by focusing on men. The female characters are excellent characters, but other than Hase they are shunted to the back row, in large part so that the author can hit you in the last chapters with a “see? see? you also forgot about women!”
But I didn’t, though–I understood from the beginning that Fraulein Popovic, who you see doesn’t even show up until this far into my review–was pivotal, central, essential, a point around which the whole plot spins. Most of the ways in which this is true are spoilers, which makes it hard to describe how utterly important she is. But I notice, reading review after review in professional journals, that no one spares a single word to mention her. Not her name, not even without her name. On the one hand you might think, “But that’s the point! Women are pivotal and still forgotten!” On the other hand, I might say that if the point was very *well* made, at least one reviewer would have felt they couldn’t complete their assignment without telling us she exists.
This point of women’s erasure is also made by and through Hase, who wrests control from men at the end of the novel - spoilers, spoilers again - to make her own path. But I am not satisfied with her path, and it feels very easy to say, “But she gains autonomy and chooses her course!” I don’t know. It sits crookedly with me. She makes a hard decision and it’s unclear who actually benefits from it. I’m inclined to think that the beneficiary is not Hase at all–it’s still the men. She is an odd, memorable, decisive, impossible character, but when the first few chapters swerve hard into Anton’s story of 80 years earlier, it feels like she’s been cut off mid-sentence and shoved to the side. That change is so abrupt and jarring, and in the end even though she’s the one who’s speaking I still feel like she is being pushed to the side, and still for Anton’s story.
Despite the disjointure, despite my qualms about the execution of theme and the fate of Hase, despite occasional dropped threads and the fact that having a time-traveling music box at the crux of your novel feels so J.J. Abrams’ Alias (2001-2006) that I could cry, I overwhelmingly am glad I read this book. It’s meaty, it’s thought-provoking, it has a quiet tension that urges you to see how things play out. It is odd and idea-driven and sentimental without being safe. It’s got beautiful prose. It has honestly taught me so much about Wikipedia. It reminds me that we never know our parents and that being able to perceive them fully is a terrifying gift and curse, worth handling tenderly if you can handle it at all. It makes me think we should get rid of our phones. It makes me think that there are good things in dark places.
September 8, 2025
This was a book I wanted to love - it promised so many of my favorite fictional elements - and the cover claim of "...a taut, genre-bending historical mystery" was so tantalizing. Why didn't it work for me? I'll parse my disappointment through the claim.
'Taut'' - only in the sense that it's relatively short and not verbose.
"Genre-bending" - I'm assuming the genre that's being bent is historical, but a dual timeline (a favorite of mine) isn't a bend, and connecting the eras through some vaguely, barely fleshed out time travel element (a favorite of mine) isn't enough for me to call it sci fi. I suppose it would could be considered 'speculative fiction' (a favorite of mine) but again, this element is too weakly presented to qualify. I don't need scientific specifics for time travel, I don't need a deeply fleshed out understanding of how it works (Exit West's unexplained strolling through doors didn't bother me a bit) but give me a LITTLE something.
'Historical mystery' comes the closest to accurate, and I did find the Vienna in the 30's interesting, but the mystery just felt.... flaccid.
I'm glad so many other readers could give this book the love I couldn't.
'Taut'' - only in the sense that it's relatively short and not verbose.
"Genre-bending" - I'm assuming the genre that's being bent is historical, but a dual timeline (a favorite of mine) isn't a bend, and connecting the eras through some vaguely, barely fleshed out time travel element (a favorite of mine) isn't enough for me to call it sci fi. I suppose it would could be considered 'speculative fiction' (a favorite of mine) but again, this element is too weakly presented to qualify. I don't need scientific specifics for time travel, I don't need a deeply fleshed out understanding of how it works (Exit West's unexplained strolling through doors didn't bother me a bit) but give me a LITTLE something.
'Historical mystery' comes the closest to accurate, and I did find the Vienna in the 30's interesting, but the mystery just felt.... flaccid.
I'm glad so many other readers could give this book the love I couldn't.
May 12, 2025
A girl has spent her entire life living off the grid with her father, carefully avoiding any traceable existence. Then, one day, he vanishes. How do you find someone who has made a life out of being unfindable? All he’s left behind is a single, cryptic clue—enigmatic and elusive, much like him.
Woven through her search is the story of mathematicians in 1930s Vienna, where the rise of fascism and a growing hostility toward intellectualism threaten the very fabric of academic life. The Engelhardt Circle, a group of thinkers and scholars, find themselves under siege as political extremism begins to silence dissent and drown out moderation. The historical backdrop doesn’t just set the stage—it mirrors the present in haunting, resonant ways.
This novel explores the echoes between past and present through themes of time, identity, love, and obsession. It’s a stunning work of dark academia, with a speculative twist that feels both intricate and intimate. I still can’t believe this is Kirsten Menger-Anderson’s debut—the writing is so elegant and emotionally charged, and I found myself deeply invested in every character.
And that cover? Genius. Especially once you realize Hase taught her father how to edit Wikipedia—and he used that very tool to leave her a breadcrumb trail.
This one’s a treat for anyone who loves time travel with a dash of romance—and the “entangled lives across timelines” trope (can we make that a thing?). Complex, emotional, and brilliantly layered.
Woven through her search is the story of mathematicians in 1930s Vienna, where the rise of fascism and a growing hostility toward intellectualism threaten the very fabric of academic life. The Engelhardt Circle, a group of thinkers and scholars, find themselves under siege as political extremism begins to silence dissent and drown out moderation. The historical backdrop doesn’t just set the stage—it mirrors the present in haunting, resonant ways.
This novel explores the echoes between past and present through themes of time, identity, love, and obsession. It’s a stunning work of dark academia, with a speculative twist that feels both intricate and intimate. I still can’t believe this is Kirsten Menger-Anderson’s debut—the writing is so elegant and emotionally charged, and I found myself deeply invested in every character.
And that cover? Genius. Especially once you realize Hase taught her father how to edit Wikipedia—and he used that very tool to leave her a breadcrumb trail.
This one’s a treat for anyone who loves time travel with a dash of romance—and the “entangled lives across timelines” trope (can we make that a thing?). Complex, emotional, and brilliantly layered.
May 19, 2025
"[Josef] includes photographs of himself and his paintings to prove he is a sensitive man, as well as his mathematical work, which--though incomplete--prove he belongs among history's geniuses."
I'm incredibly glad to have come across this book--it's got a fresh idea, a thoughtful execution, and is sharply written, not a page too long. The three intertwining narratives lead the reader inexorably toward the conclusion, allowing us to guess what's going on just before we get there. I enjoyed Hase as a primary protagonist--she is not really exceptionally intelligent, but she is more than capable. She is constrained by her circumstances but self-reliant and able to act on her clearly-defined priorities. As a character, she feels lived in.
The extent to which this book is about Wikipedia is more to do with its themes than its plot. Though Wikipedia plays a prominent role and the story could not exist without its involvement, it is also about many other things. However, the book is deeply interested in questions around the promises and limitations of the Wikipedia project. The quote above encapsulates it very well--all records of knowledge, even the most decentralized projects, are limited by the amount of available information and, more subtly, can be dictated by the attractiveness (charisma?) of the subject at hand. In this story, Josef is an educated, charismatic, and well-heeled individual who, through the Zedlacher institute, is in control of the narratives surrounding his life. People like Sophia, Anton, Engelhardt, and even Hase herself, despite their accomplishments, not likely to appear prominently in the historical record. Josef, the narcissistic, jump-booted, fascist murderer, attracts huge amounts of popular attention (Menger-Andersen cannily indicates this through the popular non-fiction book about the Zedlacher instituteand subsequent movie adaptation, which I envisioned as a Nolan project akin to Oppenheimer). Josef himself makes certain of this by carefully curating his public and historical image. In the real world, this popular attention would be represented in the time and effort paid to these individuals' respective Wikipedia pages. After all, only about 20% of all English-language Wikipedia biographies are about women.
A book that deserves much more attention than it is likely to get.
I'm incredibly glad to have come across this book--it's got a fresh idea, a thoughtful execution, and is sharply written, not a page too long. The three intertwining narratives lead the reader inexorably toward the conclusion, allowing us to guess what's going on just before we get there. I enjoyed Hase as a primary protagonist--she is not really exceptionally intelligent, but she is more than capable. She is constrained by her circumstances but self-reliant and able to act on her clearly-defined priorities. As a character, she feels lived in.
The extent to which this book is about Wikipedia is more to do with its themes than its plot. Though Wikipedia plays a prominent role and the story could not exist without its involvement, it is also about many other things. However, the book is deeply interested in questions around the promises and limitations of the Wikipedia project. The quote above encapsulates it very well--all records of knowledge, even the most decentralized projects, are limited by the amount of available information and, more subtly, can be dictated by the attractiveness (charisma?) of the subject at hand. In this story, Josef is an educated, charismatic, and well-heeled individual who, through the Zedlacher institute, is in control of the narratives surrounding his life. People like Sophia, Anton, Engelhardt, and even Hase herself, despite their accomplishments, not likely to appear prominently in the historical record. Josef, the narcissistic, jump-booted, fascist murderer, attracts huge amounts of popular attention (Menger-Andersen cannily indicates this through the popular non-fiction book about the Zedlacher instituteand subsequent movie adaptation, which I envisioned as a Nolan project akin to Oppenheimer). Josef himself makes certain of this by carefully curating his public and historical image. In the real world, this popular attention would be represented in the time and effort paid to these individuals' respective Wikipedia pages. After all, only about 20% of all English-language Wikipedia biographies are about women.
A book that deserves much more attention than it is likely to get.
May 24, 2025
3.5, rounded up.
A lot of my rating is one of those 'It isn't you, it's me' deals. Time travel is just NOT something I'm particularly interested in reading about, and I simply found a lot of this hard to follow, although always engaging. Although I can't point to anything specific, it seemed to me there were gaping holes in the logic behind it, but then the math and associated mechanics never make sense to me anyway.
The book alternates between two time frames and three narrators, and I found it hard to keep trying to remember characters and to put the pieces together (incipient Alzheimer's - or just a mind like a sieve?); not to mention that in order to 'surprise' the reader with the later revelations, the author indulges in a LOT of obfuscation early on.
That said, I DID enjoy that the author (who like me, lives in the SF area) includes a lot of local landmarks, including my old alma mater, the University of Cal Berkeley. The (rather tame) same-sex relationship in the center of the story was also a nice and welcome surprise, and I liked that one could tell what time one was in by the more formal prose in the sections taking place in the 1930's, as opposed to the looser style utilized in the 2016 sections. This was also an upcoming read for one of my GR groups and fulfills a 'Read Harder' challenge in the other one, so I can't complain about reading it.
A lot of my rating is one of those 'It isn't you, it's me' deals. Time travel is just NOT something I'm particularly interested in reading about, and I simply found a lot of this hard to follow, although always engaging. Although I can't point to anything specific, it seemed to me there were gaping holes in the logic behind it, but then the math and associated mechanics never make sense to me anyway.
The book alternates between two time frames and three narrators, and I found it hard to keep trying to remember characters and to put the pieces together (incipient Alzheimer's - or just a mind like a sieve?); not to mention that in order to 'surprise' the reader with the later revelations, the author indulges in a LOT of obfuscation early on.
That said, I DID enjoy that the author (who like me, lives in the SF area) includes a lot of local landmarks, including my old alma mater, the University of Cal Berkeley. The (rather tame) same-sex relationship in the center of the story was also a nice and welcome surprise, and I liked that one could tell what time one was in by the more formal prose in the sections taking place in the 1930's, as opposed to the looser style utilized in the 2016 sections. This was also an upcoming read for one of my GR groups and fulfills a 'Read Harder' challenge in the other one, so I can't complain about reading it.
June 11, 2025
It's a magnificent book that tastes like a mini-series. The mysterious air of mathematics added a distinct taste to the book. Past-today bond between characters was surprising. It was fun to connect the crime-tasting events together. Absolutely give this book a chance.
May 26, 2025
4.5 rounded up (though I think upon a reread this might move up to 5 even) - edit 5/26 it is a 5 I was silly and needed to give it time.
So I like quirky speculative books. Normally that has meant I like quirky speculative books that embrace their quirk... like AART having a major plot point related to Carly Rae Jepsen's hit song Call Me Maybe or The Unmapping's whole deal. This one is quirky and embraces it in a whole different way, almost more seriously? Maybe less aware, or maybe more aware and less willing to show it? Although writing all that made me realize I think what I like is not quirk exactly, but books that can deal with unreality or time travel or shifting realities or etc etc and do it well and believably? Hmm.
Anyway, I saw this one originally on an upcoming releases list and was drawn in by the awesome cover/wikipedia things and somehow didn't add it to the TBR. Fast forward a few months, I'm in SF, in Green Apple Books by the Park, a barely 15-minute walk from the rose garden where many pivotal plot points in this book happen, and I see it and go "omg I wanted to read this!" (What a coincidence!!) Bought it, and I'm really glad I did - I found it a great story to race through on this trip. I love how it challenged my understanding of each character, many times over, and that I didn't always find myself rooting for any one of the characters. Their complexities and dubious natures made me all the more attached to their stories. I love when there isn't a Black And White Answer To Who Is Good In A Book!
That said - I have no idea what to make of this. I devoured it and I don't get it and I loved it and I have no idea what it means. I think this is one of those ones that I will have to reread to get fully; probably it will require multiple rereads. I love that kind of read, though. It's fun. And thankfully it will also be the kind of book that will read completely differently the second time around. Yeah I guess tldr I can't place why I loved it so much, but it was very compelling. I finished it not 20 minutes ago and already want to pick it up and start over.
So I like quirky speculative books. Normally that has meant I like quirky speculative books that embrace their quirk... like AART having a major plot point related to Carly Rae Jepsen's hit song Call Me Maybe or The Unmapping's whole deal. This one is quirky and embraces it in a whole different way, almost more seriously? Maybe less aware, or maybe more aware and less willing to show it? Although writing all that made me realize I think what I like is not quirk exactly, but books that can deal with unreality or time travel or shifting realities or etc etc and do it well and believably? Hmm.
Anyway, I saw this one originally on an upcoming releases list and was drawn in by the awesome cover/wikipedia things and somehow didn't add it to the TBR. Fast forward a few months, I'm in SF, in Green Apple Books by the Park, a barely 15-minute walk from the rose garden where many pivotal plot points in this book happen, and I see it and go "omg I wanted to read this!" (What a coincidence!!) Bought it, and I'm really glad I did - I found it a great story to race through on this trip. I love how it challenged my understanding of each character, many times over, and that I didn't always find myself rooting for any one of the characters. Their complexities and dubious natures made me all the more attached to their stories. I love when there isn't a Black And White Answer To Who Is Good In A Book!
That said - I have no idea what to make of this. I devoured it and I don't get it and I loved it and I have no idea what it means. I think this is one of those ones that I will have to reread to get fully; probably it will require multiple rereads. I love that kind of read, though. It's fun. And thankfully it will also be the kind of book that will read completely differently the second time around. Yeah I guess tldr I can't place why I loved it so much, but it was very compelling. I finished it not 20 minutes ago and already want to pick it up and start over.
March 13, 2025
Thank you to NetGalley for an ARC of
The Expert of Subtle Revisions.
The fact this ARC contained no summary piqued my interest as well as the artsy cover art so I thought, why not request it?
It's hard to categorize this novel; it's kind of about time travel but it's a minor subplot.
It's about love, revenge, jealously, family, secrets, and perseverance; yes, I know, there's a lot going on.
The narrative is well written, but not suspenseful or dramatic.
There's a lot of exposition to get through due to the past and present timelines which is necessary to establish the backgrounds of the cast of characters.
Hase is the main character but not quite.
She is secretive, quiet, introspective, most likely due to the way she was raised, and is searching for her father.
You don't really get to know Hase; she was under developed since her timeline isn't the basis of the narrative.
Actually, there's really no one character to sympathize or root for.
The past timeline offers context to Hase's life and the reason hehind the search for her father in the present.
I enjoyed the descriptions of Vienna in the 1930s, and not just because I recently returned from a vacation in Vienna.
The political climate and civil unrest during that time in Vienna adds tension and anxiety but I felt the author just wanted to discuss Vienna, its politics and threw in the time travel as a literary device just to make it 'more interesting.'
I wanted to know more about the device; why did Gaul create it, unless I missed that part.
The lengthy exposition dragged the pacing of the narrative and after I finished this, I wondered what was the point of the story.
That we can't change the past? That we will always have regrets?
I wanted something to happen, more time travel, suspense, drama, not just exposition and monologuing with characters to care about.
The fact this ARC contained no summary piqued my interest as well as the artsy cover art so I thought, why not request it?
It's hard to categorize this novel; it's kind of about time travel but it's a minor subplot.
It's about love, revenge, jealously, family, secrets, and perseverance; yes, I know, there's a lot going on.
The narrative is well written, but not suspenseful or dramatic.
There's a lot of exposition to get through due to the past and present timelines which is necessary to establish the backgrounds of the cast of characters.
Hase is the main character but not quite.
She is secretive, quiet, introspective, most likely due to the way she was raised, and is searching for her father.
You don't really get to know Hase; she was under developed since her timeline isn't the basis of the narrative.
Actually, there's really no one character to sympathize or root for.
The past timeline offers context to Hase's life and the reason hehind the search for her father in the present.
I enjoyed the descriptions of Vienna in the 1930s, and not just because I recently returned from a vacation in Vienna.
The political climate and civil unrest during that time in Vienna adds tension and anxiety but I felt the author just wanted to discuss Vienna, its politics and threw in the time travel as a literary device just to make it 'more interesting.'
I wanted to know more about the device; why did Gaul create it, unless I missed that part.
The lengthy exposition dragged the pacing of the narrative and after I finished this, I wondered what was the point of the story.
That we can't change the past? That we will always have regrets?
I wanted something to happen, more time travel, suspense, drama, not just exposition and monologuing with characters to care about.
January 13, 2025
This book had me hooked from the beginning; I couldn’t put it down. I’ve had I went in completely blind, yet somehow intuitively knew the author was leaving breadcrumbs for a mystery that would unfold. While I was correct, I was not prepared for the journey that unfolded (in the best way!). I am not a reader that highlights or annotates, but I went into full detective mode trying to decipher all the clues I could. This is the most fun I have had reading in a long time.
The writing is beautiful. The story switches POVs which can lead to underdeveloped characters or uneven plot pacing. This is absolutely NOT the case here. The characters are fully fleshed out. The POV switches are expertly timed, appropriately progressing the plot and leaving me wanting a little more, yet quickly immersing me in the next POV. I enjoyed my time with each character (expect maybe Josef, but I still enjoyed disliking him).
Thank you to NetGalley & the publisher for providing this ARC in exchange for my honest opinion.
Edited to add:
The book that keeps on giving. It is the next day and I have spent the morning solving the math puzzle in the book. Just as I was about to accept I no longer possess the math skills necessary, I figured it out!! I am so glad she decided to include the little brain teaser from her grandfather’s recollections! I had so much fun and feel a little smarter than yesterday.
The writing is beautiful. The story switches POVs which can lead to underdeveloped characters or uneven plot pacing. This is absolutely NOT the case here. The characters are fully fleshed out. The POV switches are expertly timed, appropriately progressing the plot and leaving me wanting a little more, yet quickly immersing me in the next POV. I enjoyed my time with each character (expect maybe Josef, but I still enjoyed disliking him).
Thank you to NetGalley & the publisher for providing this ARC in exchange for my honest opinion.
Edited to add:
The book that keeps on giving. It is the next day and I have spent the morning solving the math puzzle in the book. Just as I was about to accept I no longer possess the math skills necessary, I figured it out!! I am so glad she decided to include the little brain teaser from her grandfather’s recollections! I had so much fun and feel a little smarter than yesterday.
June 24, 2025
In 2016 Berkeley, a young woman named Hase lives temporarily with one of her father’s students until her father returns from a trip on his sailboat. She has no social security number, no birth certificate, no pay stubs or tax returns. Her father makes his living as a math tutor. Legally, neither of them exists.
When her father fails to return from his sail and someone breaks into her apartment and steals her laptop and all her papers, Hase must find a new place to stay. And she begins digging into her father’s work and mysterious past in the hopes of finding him – or at least finding out what happened to him.
In Vienna in 1933, two young math geniuses vie for the same woman and the same position on the faculty of the city’s university. Anton and Josef are both brilliant mathematicians. Soon, another young genius joins their elite group, Haskell Gaul. Haskell and Anton are immediately attracted to each other. And Haskell reveals to Anton the progress he has made on the concept of time travel, sparking events that will reverberate over many decades.
The central mystery of this story unspools slowly, and the author seems fully in control of her material. Her book – a unique mashup of science, historical fiction and sci fi - demands very careful reading to follow the twists, turns and multiple characters. Although I was a little disappointed in the ending, I thoroughly enjoyed getting there. Bonus: I am travelling to Vienna later this summer, and the scenes in Vienna gave me a taste of that city towards the end of its intellectual golden age.
When her father fails to return from his sail and someone breaks into her apartment and steals her laptop and all her papers, Hase must find a new place to stay. And she begins digging into her father’s work and mysterious past in the hopes of finding him – or at least finding out what happened to him.
In Vienna in 1933, two young math geniuses vie for the same woman and the same position on the faculty of the city’s university. Anton and Josef are both brilliant mathematicians. Soon, another young genius joins their elite group, Haskell Gaul. Haskell and Anton are immediately attracted to each other. And Haskell reveals to Anton the progress he has made on the concept of time travel, sparking events that will reverberate over many decades.
The central mystery of this story unspools slowly, and the author seems fully in control of her material. Her book – a unique mashup of science, historical fiction and sci fi - demands very careful reading to follow the twists, turns and multiple characters. Although I was a little disappointed in the ending, I thoroughly enjoyed getting there. Bonus: I am travelling to Vienna later this summer, and the scenes in Vienna gave me a taste of that city towards the end of its intellectual golden age.
July 25, 2025
I love love love loved this book. perhaps the most I've loved a book since The Empusium. 2 5-stars in a row is kind of crazy but there's no doubt that this deserved it. Its amazing gorgeous cover (top cover of my 2025 reads for sure) instantly caught my eye and I just loove the way it uses the wikipedia design. Despite a slow start I absolutely fell in love with this book and read almost 200 pages yesterday.
what did I love most about this when I loved everything?
- I love dual timelines that wouldn't logically intersect but do, that are so deeply intertwined.
- I love lightly magical scifi, the way this was like to scifi what magical realism is to fantasy, a simple bit of the unexplained that the whole story rises from
- apparently I also love early 20th century queer philosophers because Anton's chapters kept making me think of everything I loved about the Empusium
- I loved the way everything intertwined and in particular I loved the parallels between Hase's wikipedia editing, making small changes to the way history is perceived, versus time travel as a way to minorly edit history itself.
- I also got SOOO excited that I was literally kicking my feet and giggling when I realized who Hase's dad was (several chapters before the reveal)
I just loved everything soo much!!! another one for the recommend to everyone regardless of what they like list!!!
(this year I've really liked a lot of books but not come across any that I LOVED the way I loved my favorites last year, so what a delight it was to find this! Tragically it is a hardcover from the interlibrary loan but you win some you lose some.)
what did I love most about this when I loved everything?
- I love dual timelines that wouldn't logically intersect but do, that are so deeply intertwined.
- I love lightly magical scifi, the way this was like to scifi what magical realism is to fantasy, a simple bit of the unexplained that the whole story rises from
- apparently I also love early 20th century queer philosophers because Anton's chapters kept making me think of everything I loved about the Empusium
- I loved the way everything intertwined and in particular I loved the parallels between Hase's wikipedia editing, making small changes to the way history is perceived, versus time travel as a way to minorly edit history itself.
- I also got SOOO excited that I was literally kicking my feet and giggling when I realized who Hase's dad was (several chapters before the reveal)
I just loved everything soo much!!! another one for the recommend to everyone regardless of what they like list!!!
(this year I've really liked a lot of books but not come across any that I LOVED the way I loved my favorites last year, so what a delight it was to find this! Tragically it is a hardcover from the interlibrary loan but you win some you lose some.)
March 9, 2025
When I saw Jenna was reading this, and it was at least partially about Wikipedia, and it had such a sick cover, I knew I had to request it on NetGalley. I went in knowing next to nothing and was surprised to find a multi-POV, multi-timeline, genre-bending, inherently queer, speculative-historical mystery that worked.
At its heart, this novel is about searching for the place where you belong and the people with whom you belong, the implications of rewriting history—whether on Wikipedia or through time travel—and the spectrum of experience between skepticism and belief (in oneself, in theories, in love). The characters are fresh and distinctly written, bizarre in their own unique ways, and to watch them all dance around each other and piece together the puzzle was quite compelling. The ending is a little abstract, but even though we don’t get closure, I was personally ok with this because sometimes I wonder if the search for our place and our people isn’t a lifelong journey. No person is a static thing, after all, and neither is history.
The fact that the author was able to balance all these elements with such grace in her DEBUT NOVEL is baffling to me, and I sincerely hope she writes 500 more books thank you very much.
Gratitude to NetGalley and Crown for the advanced copy.
At its heart, this novel is about searching for the place where you belong and the people with whom you belong, the implications of rewriting history—whether on Wikipedia or through time travel—and the spectrum of experience between skepticism and belief (in oneself, in theories, in love). The characters are fresh and distinctly written, bizarre in their own unique ways, and to watch them all dance around each other and piece together the puzzle was quite compelling. The ending is a little abstract, but even though we don’t get closure, I was personally ok with this because sometimes I wonder if the search for our place and our people isn’t a lifelong journey. No person is a static thing, after all, and neither is history.
The fact that the author was able to balance all these elements with such grace in her DEBUT NOVEL is baffling to me, and I sincerely hope she writes 500 more books thank you very much.
Gratitude to NetGalley and Crown for the advanced copy.
March 18, 2025
this was SO GOOOOOOOOOD i needed this omg!! one of The weird girl narrators of all time
May 13, 2025
I'll fully admit that I picked up this novel on the basis of its clever cover design resembling a Wikipedia article, and that site does in fact wind up impacting the plot, albeit not as much as I would have expected. But overall, I'm a little underwhelmed by the execution here. Although there are pieces that feel like they could have been effective if presented differently, as a whole it's a blandly uneven affair.
The heroine is overly precious and special, to begin with. Her genius mathematician father has raised her totally off the grid, with no documentation or even knowledge of her full name. Now in her mid-twenties in 2016, she's neither curious nor resentful of that strange upbringing, accepting at face-value how he lives on a boat, only contacts her at prearranged times, and believes he's the target of a vast conspiracy persecuting him -- which admittedly is strengthened in plausibility when he mysteriously vanishes. Meanwhile, her story is intercut with those of two additional protagonists in 1933 Austria, each of whom is struggling to succeed in academia and resist the anti-intellectual forces that are rising in the era.
Ultimately this is a tale about time travel, though that isn't revealed until the final quarter of the text (despite being apparent for quite a while beforehand). Once it is established, the shape of the work is further explained with a lot of rote exposition that isn't very dramatically engaging. In a way, it's closer to a wiki summary of events than a firsthand view of them, which is a disappointing creative choice in my opinion.
Sometimes, the tangential approach works for me in fiction. I've seen other reviews comparing this book to The Starless Sea, which I enjoyed while noting that it "obliquely hints at larger designs instead of ever giving us the full picture… and often feels more like just an overheard conversation." Here, unfortunately, I'm left more frustrated than impressed by that sort of narrative construction.
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The heroine is overly precious and special, to begin with. Her genius mathematician father has raised her totally off the grid, with no documentation or even knowledge of her full name. Now in her mid-twenties in 2016, she's neither curious nor resentful of that strange upbringing, accepting at face-value how he lives on a boat, only contacts her at prearranged times, and believes he's the target of a vast conspiracy persecuting him -- which admittedly is strengthened in plausibility when he mysteriously vanishes. Meanwhile, her story is intercut with those of two additional protagonists in 1933 Austria, each of whom is struggling to succeed in academia and resist the anti-intellectual forces that are rising in the era.
Ultimately this is a tale about time travel, though that isn't revealed until the final quarter of the text (despite being apparent for quite a while beforehand). Once it is established, the shape of the work is further explained with a lot of rote exposition that isn't very dramatically engaging. In a way, it's closer to a wiki summary of events than a firsthand view of them, which is a disappointing creative choice in my opinion.
Sometimes, the tangential approach works for me in fiction. I've seen other reviews comparing this book to The Starless Sea, which I enjoyed while noting that it "obliquely hints at larger designs instead of ever giving us the full picture… and often feels more like just an overheard conversation." Here, unfortunately, I'm left more frustrated than impressed by that sort of narrative construction.
Like this review?
--Throw me a quick one-time donation here!
https://ko-fi.com/lesserjoke
--Subscribe here to support my writing and weigh in on what I read next!
https://patreon.com/lesserjoke
--Follow along on Goodreads here!
https://www.goodreads.com/lesserjoke
--Or click here to browse through all my reviews!
https://lesserjoke.home.blog
March 26, 2025
2.5 stars @crownpublishing | #partner Do you ever read a book where you end up feeling like it was completely over your head? That’s exactly where I landed with 𝗧𝗛𝗘 𝗘𝗫𝗣𝗘𝗥𝗧 𝗢𝗙 𝗦𝗨𝗕𝗧𝗟𝗘 𝗥𝗘𝗩𝗜𝗦𝗜𝗢𝗡𝗦 by debut author Kirsten Menger-Anderson. I was originally drawn to this book because of its time travel element, which I almost always enjoy when it’s done right. In this case, the time travel played a backseat to a lot of other things that were both confusing and not all that compelling for me.
Beside time travel (which was never really explained), the story had two timelines, one in 2016 San Francisco and the other in 1933 Vienna. It involved mathematicians vying for attention in Vienna, a missing father in San Francisco, more than you ever want to know about Wikipedia, and probably a lot of other things I missed. While I liked several of the characters, the two timelines were jarring and the answers to my questions were never clear. I feel terrible being this negative about a book, especially a debut, but I just think this one was far too intellectual for me.🤷🏻♀️
Beside time travel (which was never really explained), the story had two timelines, one in 2016 San Francisco and the other in 1933 Vienna. It involved mathematicians vying for attention in Vienna, a missing father in San Francisco, more than you ever want to know about Wikipedia, and probably a lot of other things I missed. While I liked several of the characters, the two timelines were jarring and the answers to my questions were never clear. I feel terrible being this negative about a book, especially a debut, but I just think this one was far too intellectual for me.🤷🏻♀️
September 8, 2024
I loved most of it, the setting, story, characters, mood, but as I neared the end I became lost, in the character identities, he time travel, the hunt for a missing unknown thing, and missing person, and clues which go nowhere. I suppose I should have backtracked and tried to read more carefully, but there is so much else to read at hand and arriving. I look forward to the next endeavour by this author.
October 1, 2025
I really enjoyed reading this book, as it touches on several interests of mine, including editing Wikipedia articles… The story balances between 1930s Vienna and current San Francisco and is well written. There are some inconsistencies (in particular, the time traveler’s paradox), shortcuts and inaccuracies (e.g. Hase is German for hare, not rabbit) in the plot that should have been solved, though. Hopefully a future novel by this author will be more evolved.
May 12, 2025
a "genre bending" novel about time travel where not much time travel actually happens.
➵ 2 stars (i'm being very generous)
➵ 2 stars (i'm being very generous)
June 6, 2025
this was such a miss for me. the whole time travel element felt so convoluted. the characters felt forced into their roles to serve the plot. I couldn't believe them. the 1930s Vienna stuff was kinda intriguing but fell apart at the end. I'd say skip this one.
July 18, 2025
Wow this was so good! Mind-bending for sure and done so well. Unless you know German, I’d suggest the audiobook for a more immersive experience.
July 27, 2025
Sometimes gay love can pierce through the veil of death and save the day something something
June 23, 2025
It was good, but in some ways it felt incomplete. There were some very interesting themes that I felt could have been explored in greater depth, and the ending felt rushed compared to the pacing of the rest of the book.
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