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Laika
You feel watched. It's nothing new, but the feeling is amplified when the streets are busy. That hum in your head is now a buzz.
Laika desperately wishes for a new life. At fourteen, she’s hardened and independent, living on the streets of Southern California. She’s finally free of her volatile home but yearns for true stability.
As Graham, a waiter at a local Russian restaurant, watches Laika steal and struggle to survive, he sees there is something else going on. Something dangerous. An insidious disease that gnaws at her mind and drags her deeper into a world of chaos and delusion.
Laika brings to light the often-shrouded world of paranoid schizophrenia. It also examines the socially stigmatized issues of homelessness, addiction, and PTSD, in the hopes of fostering greater awareness and compassion.
Librarian's note: See alternate cover edition of ISBN13 9781941799512 here.
Laika desperately wishes for a new life. At fourteen, she’s hardened and independent, living on the streets of Southern California. She’s finally free of her volatile home but yearns for true stability.
As Graham, a waiter at a local Russian restaurant, watches Laika steal and struggle to survive, he sees there is something else going on. Something dangerous. An insidious disease that gnaws at her mind and drags her deeper into a world of chaos and delusion.
Laika brings to light the often-shrouded world of paranoid schizophrenia. It also examines the socially stigmatized issues of homelessness, addiction, and PTSD, in the hopes of fostering greater awareness and compassion.
Librarian's note: See alternate cover edition of ISBN13 9781941799512 here.
260 pages, ebook
Published October 10, 2017
2 people are currently reading
7 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews
October 10, 2017
Laika Ephrem is a child whose world is darkness and Graham a man who has experienced some darkness of his own. A good-hearted waiter who has seen her stealing food to survive, he knows she’s in trouble and he only wants to help. But, Laika’s problems are much deeper than finding her next meal, and helping her may be more than Graham can handle. As Laika’s tenuous grasp on reality begins to loosen, and the voices in her head urge her toward destruction, Graham must convince her that what she thinks is real is merely an illusion before time runs out.
In this brilliantly conceived and executed novel, Kort takes her readers into a distorted world where fear and paranoia overwhelm reality. With compassion, honesty, and startling clarity, she convincingly portrays a terrifying affliction and reminds us that human beings dwell behind numbers and statistics and they deserve to have their stories heard.
In this brilliantly conceived and executed novel, Kort takes her readers into a distorted world where fear and paranoia overwhelm reality. With compassion, honesty, and startling clarity, she convincingly portrays a terrifying affliction and reminds us that human beings dwell behind numbers and statistics and they deserve to have their stories heard.
August 19, 2017
Laika is a teenage runaway in the big city, coping with mental illness, while searching for an aunt who may not even be in the city at all. A waiter at a restaurant near her squat notices her, and decides he needs to help. We know she can trust him, but will her brain let her?
The majority of Laika is told in the second person, present tense (with the author telling the story about you, as though you are Laika, and her experience is happening to you now). Not many books are told in the second person (I don't know that I've ever read one) but in this case it works out really well, because sharing Laika's point of view through all of her mental acrobatics (and by extension, being able to empathize with the mentally ill in a larger sense) really IS the story here.
That said, it's fascinating to read all the weird stuff, like the complex series of agent numbers that Laika assigns, then re-assigns, to different people she thinks may be working for her father to try to find her, and Laika's awful, cynical (and non-existent in the real world) friend who seems to show up only to tell her not to trust anyone.
As much as I enjoyed Kate Kort's first book, Glass, I was really glad that Laika (while still taking its subject matter quite seriously) strikes a somewhat lighter tone, at least in comparison. I read something on Amazon calling this a YA book, so of course that makes sense. I don't really know any young adults, but I would recommend this book to anyone.
The majority of Laika is told in the second person, present tense (with the author telling the story about you, as though you are Laika, and her experience is happening to you now). Not many books are told in the second person (I don't know that I've ever read one) but in this case it works out really well, because sharing Laika's point of view through all of her mental acrobatics (and by extension, being able to empathize with the mentally ill in a larger sense) really IS the story here.
That said, it's fascinating to read all the weird stuff, like the complex series of agent numbers that Laika assigns, then re-assigns, to different people she thinks may be working for her father to try to find her, and Laika's awful, cynical (and non-existent in the real world) friend who seems to show up only to tell her not to trust anyone.
As much as I enjoyed Kate Kort's first book, Glass, I was really glad that Laika (while still taking its subject matter quite seriously) strikes a somewhat lighter tone, at least in comparison. I read something on Amazon calling this a YA book, so of course that makes sense. I don't really know any young adults, but I would recommend this book to anyone.
September 27, 2017
Much like her debut novel, "Glass", Kate Kort's new book, "Laika", centers on characters with severe mental illness. This story is especially heartrending because the main character is a 14-year-old homeless girl with schizophrenia who has run away from her abusive father. Laika is in search of a long-lost aunt who she hopes will offer her safe haven, however, with very few leads, she is left to aimlessly navigate the streets of a large and unfamiliar city. In her vulnerability, Laika mistakenly trusts people who only take advantage of her, refuses help from the good-intended, and creates her own imaginary confidant who ultimately feeds into her biggest paranoias. Kort has made the skilled narrative choice to write the story in the second person, which forces the reader to feel Laika’s pain, confusion, and fear as if it were their own, and gives them a new perspective into the world of mental illness. Kort continues to impress and I would highly recommend this book to anyone looking for a well-written and complex read.
October 17, 2017
Laika, a novel that held my attention throughout, carefully examines multiple angles of neurodiversity and mental health. It explores both the outer and inner worlds of a vulnerable young female (Laika) whose prior traumatic experiences lead her to create an alternate reality, into which she dives deeper and deeper as the book progresses. This shifting between realities adds complexity to the novel and helps to hold the reader’s interest. My favorite part of the novel is the touching (and innocent) relationship that develops between Laika and Graham, a middle-aged man struggling to cope with aspects of his own mental health.
While the content is heavy, Laika won’t leave you feeling (too) sad. It is a testament to Kort’s abilities as an author that she can write about both traumas and neurodiversity in ways that are real but also fundamentally optimistic and that have implications for how we might more sensitively interact with one another in our own lives.
Read it!
While the content is heavy, Laika won’t leave you feeling (too) sad. It is a testament to Kort’s abilities as an author that she can write about both traumas and neurodiversity in ways that are real but also fundamentally optimistic and that have implications for how we might more sensitively interact with one another in our own lives.
Read it!
October 11, 2017
LAIKA's second person narrative draws you in with the nostalgic beats of a young adult survival story, kicked up to the pace of a thriller. But this is no Choose Your Own Adventure novel. You are tugged and pulled through suspense and uncertainty, questioning if streetwise Laika is as much a passenger as the reader.
Kate Kort's effortless command of perspective plunges the reader into the immersive fear and disorientation of failing mental health, bringing the discussion of mental illness to the Young Adult audience. LAIKA attacks the chaos of mental illness with compassion, offering a message of understanding and hope to its readers. It is during fragile adolescence when so many, like fourteen-year-old Laika, feel the first terrifying signs of depression, anxiety, or even schizophrenia.
Read LAIKA, then please share it with a teen in your life.
Kate Kort's effortless command of perspective plunges the reader into the immersive fear and disorientation of failing mental health, bringing the discussion of mental illness to the Young Adult audience. LAIKA attacks the chaos of mental illness with compassion, offering a message of understanding and hope to its readers. It is during fragile adolescence when so many, like fourteen-year-old Laika, feel the first terrifying signs of depression, anxiety, or even schizophrenia.
Read LAIKA, then please share it with a teen in your life.
October 12, 2017
Laika is unlike any other book I have read, in that it would make me feel delight, confusion, and frustration simultaneously. Delight in Laika's outlook and drive, in Graham's sense of responsibility toward helping Laika as he deals with his own PTSD, and in Kort's choice to use 2nd person to narrate Laika's chapters. Confusion in trying to follow Laika's increasingly intricate delusions. Frustration in knowing that the choices the characters make will end up badly, but also that the choices are inevitable given the issues they are battling. I feel like I now have a better understanding of the challenges people with schizophrenia and PTSD have to face, as well as the people who have to treat and care for them.
I can't recommend this book enough.
I can't recommend this book enough.
October 10, 2017
Kate Kort’s second novel, Laika, is a chilling yet moving exploration of an embattled girl’s plummet into paranoid schizophrenia while living homeless on mean city streets. The novel keeps the reader close via an unexpected point of view, brilliantly rendered. Laika could be one more tragic runaway if not for Graham, a middle-aged man with his own psychic battle and a huge heart, who illustrates the novel’s (and life’s) greatest lesson: to be decent human beings, we must care for those who suffer, no matter how damaged we are ourselves.
October 11, 2017
Kort has created an immersion experience with LAIKA. Alternating between second person and third person narratives, the writing partners readers with the title character. To read LAIKA is to live in her tortured reality and experience her stress, fear, and confusion as mental illness distorts her world. Kort makes true empathy inescapable by challenging readers to walk in the shoes of a sick and desperate child.
October 11, 2017
Kort's second novel is captivating and offers a compassionate, realistic view of serious mental health issues and homelessness. Kort's prose is vivid and engagingly empathetic. Another great read from a gifted and insightful writer!
October 10, 2017
This book surprised me in the best ways possible.
July 13, 2023
If you like Kate's first novel, Glass, then you'll get even deeper inside the head of a young girl dealing with mental illness. Kate is a talented writer and I look forward to reading more from her.
Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews