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You Feel It Just Below the Ribs
A haunting, provocative novel, You Feel It Just Below the Ribs is a fictional autobiography in an alternate twentieth century that chronicles one woman’s unusual life, including the price she pays to survive and the cost her choices hold for the society she is trying to save.
Born at the end of the old world, Miriam grows up during The Great Reckoning, a sprawling, decades-long war that nearly decimates humanity and strips her of friends and family. Devastated by grief and loneliness, she emotionally exiles herself, avoiding relationships or allegiances, and throws herself into her work—disengagement that serves her when the war finally ends, and The New Society arises.
To ensure a lasting peace, The New Society forbids anything that may cause tribal loyalties, including traditional families. Suddenly, everyone must live as Miriam has chosen to—disconnected and unattached. A researcher at heart, Miriam becomes involved in implementing this detachment process. She does not know it is the beginning of a darkly sinister program that will transform this new world and the lives of everyone in it. Eventually, the harmful effects of her research become too much for Miriam, and she devises a secret plan to destroy the system from within, endangering her own life.
But is her “confession” honest—or is it a fabrication riddled with lies meant to conceal the truth?
A jarring and uncanny tale of loss, trauma, and the power of human connection and deception, You Feel It Just Below the Ribs is a portrait of a disturbing alternate world eerily within reach, and an examination of the difficult choices we must make to survive in it.
Born at the end of the old world, Miriam grows up during The Great Reckoning, a sprawling, decades-long war that nearly decimates humanity and strips her of friends and family. Devastated by grief and loneliness, she emotionally exiles herself, avoiding relationships or allegiances, and throws herself into her work—disengagement that serves her when the war finally ends, and The New Society arises.
To ensure a lasting peace, The New Society forbids anything that may cause tribal loyalties, including traditional families. Suddenly, everyone must live as Miriam has chosen to—disconnected and unattached. A researcher at heart, Miriam becomes involved in implementing this detachment process. She does not know it is the beginning of a darkly sinister program that will transform this new world and the lives of everyone in it. Eventually, the harmful effects of her research become too much for Miriam, and she devises a secret plan to destroy the system from within, endangering her own life.
But is her “confession” honest—or is it a fabrication riddled with lies meant to conceal the truth?
A jarring and uncanny tale of loss, trauma, and the power of human connection and deception, You Feel It Just Below the Ribs is a portrait of a disturbing alternate world eerily within reach, and an examination of the difficult choices we must make to survive in it.
384 pages, Kindle Edition
First published November 16, 2021
310 people are currently reading
12747 people want to read
About the author
Jeffrey Cranor
14 books574 followersJeffrey co-writes the semi-monthly podcast WELCOME TO NIGHT VALE. He also makes dance and theater with choreographer (and wife) Jillian Sweeney. Most recently: VULTURE-WALLY at Incubator Arts Project and THIS COULD BE IT at The Chocolate Factory. Jeffrey also occasionally writes, performs, and directs (mostly short) plays for the New York Neo-Futurists and their long-running show TOO MUCH LIGHT MAKES THE BABY GO BLIND.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 655 reviews
September 27, 2021
Every book is a construction, to some degree, between the author(s) and their reader; it’s part of why we react so strongly when the movie adaptations get things “wrong.” You Feel It Just Below The Ribs is a beautiful example of how just the right amount of ambiguity can pull the reader into engaging more completely with the story.
It starts almost simply; the introduction explains that we’re reading the autobiography of Dr. Miriam Gregory, mind behind some of the core tenets of the somewhat ominously named New Society. There are frequent footnotes accompanying the text, explaining concepts or providing further context on locations and people. But it’s not too long before all the familiar frames start to slip – the cities have the same names as we’re familiar with in reality, but it’s clear history took a different course; the academic footnotes turn defensive, critical, even outright mocking at times; and the narrator herself seems to be telling us only parts of what’s going on.
Through it all, however, there is the consistency provided by some beautiful writing – not flowery, straightforward, but still containing some sentences that just felt like simple perfection. Readers already familiar with the authors’ works, or the Within the Wires podcast which created the universe this novel is based in, won’t be too surprised by that. Deceptively deep simplicity – backed by moments of horror both existential and plausible – is a trademark of both Jeffrey Cranor and Janina Matthewson; working together seems to bring out the very best in both of them. If you’re not up to date, or completely new to their podcast, you won’t need to be current to get into this book; I went in deliberately blind and had no problem keeping up.
You Feel It Just Below The Ribs is thought-provoking, more than a little melancholy, and ultimately one of the most intriguing novels I’ve read this year. What a quietly wonderful book.
It starts almost simply; the introduction explains that we’re reading the autobiography of Dr. Miriam Gregory, mind behind some of the core tenets of the somewhat ominously named New Society. There are frequent footnotes accompanying the text, explaining concepts or providing further context on locations and people. But it’s not too long before all the familiar frames start to slip – the cities have the same names as we’re familiar with in reality, but it’s clear history took a different course; the academic footnotes turn defensive, critical, even outright mocking at times; and the narrator herself seems to be telling us only parts of what’s going on.
Through it all, however, there is the consistency provided by some beautiful writing – not flowery, straightforward, but still containing some sentences that just felt like simple perfection. Readers already familiar with the authors’ works, or the Within the Wires podcast which created the universe this novel is based in, won’t be too surprised by that. Deceptively deep simplicity – backed by moments of horror both existential and plausible – is a trademark of both Jeffrey Cranor and Janina Matthewson; working together seems to bring out the very best in both of them. If you’re not up to date, or completely new to their podcast, you won’t need to be current to get into this book; I went in deliberately blind and had no problem keeping up.
You Feel It Just Below The Ribs is thought-provoking, more than a little melancholy, and ultimately one of the most intriguing novels I’ve read this year. What a quietly wonderful book.
April 14, 2022
This is an odd book: on the one hand, a meditation on memory, truth, and complicity, that reads very believably for what it’s supposed to be; on the other, a meandering story with little payoff set in an unconvincing dystopia. It’s evidently part of a world the authors have created in a podcast, and I suspect it would make much more sense to their listeners. The book doesn’t assume knowledge of the world or characters, but the meaning of it seems a bit lost without that context. It feels like a spinoff work, one that sometimes had me wondering, while reading, “why tell this story? Why this character?”—the answers to which are intuitive for a true standalone book.
The premise is that this is a found manuscript, in the vein of The Handmaid’s Tale, except here the dystopian society hasn’t fallen, and the manuscript is distributed in secret by the Yuriatin Press, whose editors have inserted a few pages of commentary at various points, along with occasional footnotes. The manuscript’s author, Miriam, was an influential psychiatrist who eventually vanished, and the manuscript was found after her death. The editors, meanwhile, take issue with much of what she says.
The authors do fully commit to that conceit, which is one of the book’s more enjoyable aspects. Miriam’s writing sounds believably like someone talking to herself on the page, while the editors’ commentary also rings true. I especially enjoyed the bits where she makes some generalization about the world (as people do) and the editors drop a “well, actually…” In some places the footnotes undercut the emotional impact of the text—clearly deliberate on the editors’ part—but it’s because this book is trying to do something different.
The question of reliability would no doubt be richer for podcast listeners, with additional context about the world. Miriam, whose work has mostly involved erasing memories, is keenly aware of the imperfections of human memory even under ordinary circumstances, and freely admits that her own isn’t entirely reliable. And the editors’ commentary seems geared toward convincing readers not to believe her, disputing her claims where she contradicts the government line. For me, though, this doesn’t fully succeed as an unreliable narrator story. Unreliable narrators are great where the reader can begin to see through their biases, lies or misconceptions to what’s actually going on, or where we get multiple perspectives and everyone remembers events a bit differently (Fingersmith is a great example of the latter).
But just telling us that a narrator is unreliable without embedding an alternate interpretation in the text isn’t very satisfying, and the editors’ “the government would never do such a thing!” line isn’t exactly a viable alternative. We all know you can’t trust the government in a dystopian tale. I actually wound up wondering more about whether the editors were being disingenuous than about whether Miriam was: they know the government is dishonest, because it claims total transparency while suppressing this manuscript, and they’re going to considerable trouble to clandestinely distribute it. In that light, the pearl-clutching commentary seems more like cover in case someone is caught with it than sincerely held beliefs.
Otherwise, the book reads quickly—the regular edition would be a large print version by most standards—and the individual scenes are often engaging, but as a whole it never fully grabbed me. It mostly just follows Miriam through various phases of her life, without any driving plot, reminiscent of real-life celebrity memoirs. Her voice is believable, but I never felt I knew her as a person well enough to have much opinion of or feelings about her one way or the other. The same holds true for the supporting characters. And the supposed revelations at the end are obvious all along.
The dystopia itself is also weird and unlikely. It’s an alternate version of the 20th century, in which the fighting and pandemics around World War I were even worse than in real life, rising to apocalyptic levels that caused societies around the world to break down. (Indeed, the first third to half of the book feels more like a post-apocalyptic tale than a dystopia, as Miriam wanders through depopulated lands.) People then decide that the cause of all this misery was tribalism, that tribalism exists because of families, and therefore nobody should have families anymore (except spouses, which are totally fine), all children should be raised in institutions and programmed to forget the first 10 years of their lives, and anyone found contacting a relative should be punished and/or given therapy causing them to forget or let go of that person.
And I didn’t buy any of it. That humanity would make this decision and maintain it over decades. That a society in which all children are raised in institutions would be at all functional (this is seriously detrimental to children’s development after all). That enough women would be willing to undergo pregnancies knowing the babies would be taken from them at birth to stop the global population from collapsing, let alone to repopulate the world after a collapse. I generally expect dystopias—especially in books like this with serious themes, that aren’t just using the dystopia as the impetus for a thriller or romance—to comment on current societal trends, often by taking them to an extreme. And from the blurb I thought this book did that—it claims the book is about “living disconnected,” which is indeed a trend in modern society. But neither Miriam nor those around her actually seem “disconnected” in the way we mean it—they get married, they have friends—they’ve just outlawed biological families, which doesn’t seem like a logical outgrowth of anything real.
So in the end, not a book I’d recommend, although the writing is pretty good and I always like to see a novel admit the unreliability of memory. Perhaps a more rewarding read for podcast listeners, but while aspects of it are intriguing, it didn’t ultimately do much for me.
The premise is that this is a found manuscript, in the vein of The Handmaid’s Tale, except here the dystopian society hasn’t fallen, and the manuscript is distributed in secret by the Yuriatin Press, whose editors have inserted a few pages of commentary at various points, along with occasional footnotes. The manuscript’s author, Miriam, was an influential psychiatrist who eventually vanished, and the manuscript was found after her death. The editors, meanwhile, take issue with much of what she says.
The authors do fully commit to that conceit, which is one of the book’s more enjoyable aspects. Miriam’s writing sounds believably like someone talking to herself on the page, while the editors’ commentary also rings true. I especially enjoyed the bits where she makes some generalization about the world (as people do) and the editors drop a “well, actually…” In some places the footnotes undercut the emotional impact of the text—clearly deliberate on the editors’ part—but it’s because this book is trying to do something different.
The question of reliability would no doubt be richer for podcast listeners, with additional context about the world. Miriam, whose work has mostly involved erasing memories, is keenly aware of the imperfections of human memory even under ordinary circumstances, and freely admits that her own isn’t entirely reliable. And the editors’ commentary seems geared toward convincing readers not to believe her, disputing her claims where she contradicts the government line. For me, though, this doesn’t fully succeed as an unreliable narrator story. Unreliable narrators are great where the reader can begin to see through their biases, lies or misconceptions to what’s actually going on, or where we get multiple perspectives and everyone remembers events a bit differently (Fingersmith is a great example of the latter).
But just telling us that a narrator is unreliable without embedding an alternate interpretation in the text isn’t very satisfying, and the editors’ “the government would never do such a thing!” line isn’t exactly a viable alternative. We all know you can’t trust the government in a dystopian tale. I actually wound up wondering more about whether the editors were being disingenuous than about whether Miriam was: they know the government is dishonest, because it claims total transparency while suppressing this manuscript, and they’re going to considerable trouble to clandestinely distribute it. In that light, the pearl-clutching commentary seems more like cover in case someone is caught with it than sincerely held beliefs.
Otherwise, the book reads quickly—the regular edition would be a large print version by most standards—and the individual scenes are often engaging, but as a whole it never fully grabbed me. It mostly just follows Miriam through various phases of her life, without any driving plot, reminiscent of real-life celebrity memoirs. Her voice is believable, but I never felt I knew her as a person well enough to have much opinion of or feelings about her one way or the other. The same holds true for the supporting characters. And the supposed revelations at the end are obvious all along.
The dystopia itself is also weird and unlikely. It’s an alternate version of the 20th century, in which the fighting and pandemics around World War I were even worse than in real life, rising to apocalyptic levels that caused societies around the world to break down. (Indeed, the first third to half of the book feels more like a post-apocalyptic tale than a dystopia, as Miriam wanders through depopulated lands.) People then decide that the cause of all this misery was tribalism, that tribalism exists because of families, and therefore nobody should have families anymore (except spouses, which are totally fine), all children should be raised in institutions and programmed to forget the first 10 years of their lives, and anyone found contacting a relative should be punished and/or given therapy causing them to forget or let go of that person.
And I didn’t buy any of it. That humanity would make this decision and maintain it over decades. That a society in which all children are raised in institutions would be at all functional (this is seriously detrimental to children’s development after all). That enough women would be willing to undergo pregnancies knowing the babies would be taken from them at birth to stop the global population from collapsing, let alone to repopulate the world after a collapse. I generally expect dystopias—especially in books like this with serious themes, that aren’t just using the dystopia as the impetus for a thriller or romance—to comment on current societal trends, often by taking them to an extreme. And from the blurb I thought this book did that—it claims the book is about “living disconnected,” which is indeed a trend in modern society. But neither Miriam nor those around her actually seem “disconnected” in the way we mean it—they get married, they have friends—they’ve just outlawed biological families, which doesn’t seem like a logical outgrowth of anything real.
So in the end, not a book I’d recommend, although the writing is pretty good and I always like to see a novel admit the unreliability of memory. Perhaps a more rewarding read for podcast listeners, but while aspects of it are intriguing, it didn’t ultimately do much for me.
September 27, 2021
A dystopian novel about family, memory, grief. Some of it was a bit so long and some was a bit brushed over but overall a quick and fascinating sci-fi read. (It takes place in the Within the Wires podcast universe but you don't really need to listen to it to read the book.)
December 10, 2021
The blurb, the cover and the title intrigued me a lot to pick it up and I'm very glad that I wasn't disappointed. Had a few duds but this wasn't one of them. An intriguing story that was exciting to listen to and never got dull.
August 22, 2021
I'll start with what I liked about the book.
First of all, it is beautifully written. The authors are obviously masters at both storytelling and prose. It was a little slow going at first, but I was soon hooked and couldn't put the book down. I applaud their attempt at formatting a story as a nonfiction manuscript, complete with footnotes and interludes from the publisher. Whether or not it is successful, I'll dive into later.
I also loved how all of the main characters in the novel are women. It's something I didn't consciously notice until nearly the end of the book, but it was very refreshing. Any and all men and boys are there to further the plot, a tactic typically switched in most stories, so it was interesting to see the roles reversed.
My major complaint with the book is that, though at the end of the novel it is mentioned that this takes place in the same world as the authors' podcast Within the Wires and claims you do not have to have listened to the podcast to fully grasp the book, I found that to be false. I took notes along the way detailing my confusion, and I feel a lot of it would have been clearer had I listened to the podcast first. I'm familiar with Jeffrey Cranor's work in Welcome to Night Vale, and once I read the explanation of the podcast at the end of the book I remembered having listened to a few sample episodes of Within the Wires posted to Nightvale. But again, I feel like I would have grasped the full tone, breadth, and theme of the book better having listened to the podcast.
My next chief complaint is that the book's message or theme is very unclear. Part of that is on me: I must have skimmed over the part in the Introduction establishing that the footnotes and interludes are written by who they claim to be a third party Publisher (name escapes me at the moment). However, I read all the footnotes and Interludes from the perspective of this world's government, the New Society. I felt like I was constantly flip flopping between which was the more reliable narrator, Dr. Gregory or the Publisher. Obviously, with the book being written from Dr. Gregory's perspective, the reader tends to want to trust her, especially in that almost all books set in a dystopian/utopian society, "Big Brother" is typically the bad guy. Even if the authors are trying to relay the message that both the author and the publisher are not completely reliable, they cannot ignored the decades of dystopian novels (Ayn Rand's Anthem, George Orwell's 1984, Suzanne Collins' Hunger Games, to name a few) that have influenced readers to expect to see the government as the "bad guy."
That being said, I was extremely dismayed at the book's message on nationalism, families, and surrogacy. As stated before, despite Dr. Gregory not being a perfect character, the reader tends to want to favor her over what is being said in the footnotes. A big example of my issue with the book is how the character of Rosemary/Dr. Rose Hartstock is handled. Though the footnotes say they might not be the same person (an unnecessary addition in a book supposed to be fictional: ie who cares if there's doubt to them being the same person when you're implying they are?), Dr. Gregory obviously paints her as the villain of the story, having manipulated both Dr. Gregory and many powerful people into giving Dr. Hatstock access to perform torturous experiments on both children and adults. However, the footnotes claim that none of this is true, as Dr. Hartstock began numerous mental health institutions and trauma centers all over the world. To me, this is implying that either Dr. Gregory is completely unreliable (which we know she isn't, otherwise why write this book?), Dr. Hartstock used what she learned by her torture methods to create ethical and moral mental health centers (ie the ends justify the means, similar to horrendous experiments taken out on Jews in the Holocaust and black women throughout history, but without which we wouldn't know as much about health and medicine that we do today), or that all of these mental health institutions are more of the same of what Dr. Hartstock established with Dr. Gregory: torture chambers disguised as mental health facilities.
Either way, the message I interpreted from this is that mental health centers are not to be trusted. It feels to me the message the authors are trying to communicate, one of the themes of the novel, is that any government-run institution with the intention of improving the mental health of it's citizens is untrustworthy and ultimately bad. Though the real world went through a period of time where this was true, this message seems incredibly tone deaf for the world we live in today. Now more than ever the world desperately needs government funded mental health institutions for all things from drug addiction, poverty, homelessness, to unpacking toxic masculinity and trauma instilled from generations of culture based from a puritanical Christian society. This is not the message the world needs right now. We don't need any more reasons for society to doubt doctors and medicine.
Another theme the book seems to communicate is this "slippery slope" mentality. This book kept making me think of Ayn Rand's Anthem, much to my dismay. The message of both of these books seems to be that there can be no in-between, no gray areas, in which society can live. We either have families, and the eventually breeds nationalism and war, or we live in a society where all familial connections are forcibly severed by a higher, governmental power. Again, in a time where our current real-world circumstances are in such strife, I feel this is a very tone deaf message. We're living in a world where parents are refusing to vaccinate their children against a pandemic for fear of nonexistent side effects, while being okay with putting other families at risk by this decision. We live in a world horribly overpopulated, diseased, and polluted, while people continue to grow their families either because they don't believe the science, or don't care as long as they get a child who can satisfy their personal wishes, while dooming their children to deal with a world in an even worse shape than the one their parents had to grow up in. I don't see why these books always swing to extremes, instead of preaching a world where perhaps families can exist while having empathy for other families as well, from all over the globe.
Finally, I was disturbed at the implications of emotional turmoil a biological parent must go through when giving up a child. The sequences when Teresa falls into depression after giving up her surrogate child seemed tone deaf to the millions of surrogate parents who agree to give up their biological children every year. It also establishes an archaic attitude towards biological linkages between families. There are millions of families brought together by adoption that have the same, if not stronger, bonds than those connected by blood. I understand post partum depression exists, but the lengths Teresa is described as going to in naming one of her surrogate children I find offensive towards real surrogate parents.
The book also ended in an extremely disappointing way. I know they establish from the beginning the lack of hope there is for the future, but I was hoping for some kind of resolution more satisfying than what we got. If the authors continue to further the story in their podcast, I'm disappointed that this whole novel seems to be one big advertisement for said podcast.
The book also needs a typo pass. There were many misspellings and repeated or missing words that were fairly distracting.
All in all, the book was fairly entertaining, and perhaps I'm off base with my assumptions on the theme, tone, and message of this story. Perhaps I need to have listened to the podcast to better get the "point". But I feel if that is the case, readers need to be forewarned that this is an addendum to a story and world set up by the podcast. I appreciate what the book was trying to attempt in formatting it as a nonfictional, historical piece, but in trying to equally display two conflicting accounts in Dr. Gregory's story and the publisher's footnotes, I feel they canceled each other out, muddying the overall message.
TL;DR: An entertaining but ultimately confusing and disappointing read.
First of all, it is beautifully written. The authors are obviously masters at both storytelling and prose. It was a little slow going at first, but I was soon hooked and couldn't put the book down. I applaud their attempt at formatting a story as a nonfiction manuscript, complete with footnotes and interludes from the publisher. Whether or not it is successful, I'll dive into later.
I also loved how all of the main characters in the novel are women. It's something I didn't consciously notice until nearly the end of the book, but it was very refreshing. Any and all men and boys are there to further the plot, a tactic typically switched in most stories, so it was interesting to see the roles reversed.
My major complaint with the book is that, though at the end of the novel it is mentioned that this takes place in the same world as the authors' podcast Within the Wires and claims you do not have to have listened to the podcast to fully grasp the book, I found that to be false. I took notes along the way detailing my confusion, and I feel a lot of it would have been clearer had I listened to the podcast first. I'm familiar with Jeffrey Cranor's work in Welcome to Night Vale, and once I read the explanation of the podcast at the end of the book I remembered having listened to a few sample episodes of Within the Wires posted to Nightvale. But again, I feel like I would have grasped the full tone, breadth, and theme of the book better having listened to the podcast.
My next chief complaint is that the book's message or theme is very unclear. Part of that is on me: I must have skimmed over the part in the Introduction establishing that the footnotes and interludes are written by who they claim to be a third party Publisher (name escapes me at the moment). However, I read all the footnotes and Interludes from the perspective of this world's government, the New Society. I felt like I was constantly flip flopping between which was the more reliable narrator, Dr. Gregory or the Publisher. Obviously, with the book being written from Dr. Gregory's perspective, the reader tends to want to trust her, especially in that almost all books set in a dystopian/utopian society, "Big Brother" is typically the bad guy. Even if the authors are trying to relay the message that both the author and the publisher are not completely reliable, they cannot ignored the decades of dystopian novels (Ayn Rand's Anthem, George Orwell's 1984, Suzanne Collins' Hunger Games, to name a few) that have influenced readers to expect to see the government as the "bad guy."
That being said, I was extremely dismayed at the book's message on nationalism, families, and surrogacy. As stated before, despite Dr. Gregory not being a perfect character, the reader tends to want to favor her over what is being said in the footnotes. A big example of my issue with the book is how the character of Rosemary/Dr. Rose Hartstock is handled. Though the footnotes say they might not be the same person (an unnecessary addition in a book supposed to be fictional: ie who cares if there's doubt to them being the same person when you're implying they are?), Dr. Gregory obviously paints her as the villain of the story, having manipulated both Dr. Gregory and many powerful people into giving Dr. Hatstock access to perform torturous experiments on both children and adults. However, the footnotes claim that none of this is true, as Dr. Hartstock began numerous mental health institutions and trauma centers all over the world. To me, this is implying that either Dr. Gregory is completely unreliable (which we know she isn't, otherwise why write this book?), Dr. Hartstock used what she learned by her torture methods to create ethical and moral mental health centers (ie the ends justify the means, similar to horrendous experiments taken out on Jews in the Holocaust and black women throughout history, but without which we wouldn't know as much about health and medicine that we do today), or that all of these mental health institutions are more of the same of what Dr. Hartstock established with Dr. Gregory: torture chambers disguised as mental health facilities.
Either way, the message I interpreted from this is that mental health centers are not to be trusted. It feels to me the message the authors are trying to communicate, one of the themes of the novel, is that any government-run institution with the intention of improving the mental health of it's citizens is untrustworthy and ultimately bad. Though the real world went through a period of time where this was true, this message seems incredibly tone deaf for the world we live in today. Now more than ever the world desperately needs government funded mental health institutions for all things from drug addiction, poverty, homelessness, to unpacking toxic masculinity and trauma instilled from generations of culture based from a puritanical Christian society. This is not the message the world needs right now. We don't need any more reasons for society to doubt doctors and medicine.
Another theme the book seems to communicate is this "slippery slope" mentality. This book kept making me think of Ayn Rand's Anthem, much to my dismay. The message of both of these books seems to be that there can be no in-between, no gray areas, in which society can live. We either have families, and the eventually breeds nationalism and war, or we live in a society where all familial connections are forcibly severed by a higher, governmental power. Again, in a time where our current real-world circumstances are in such strife, I feel this is a very tone deaf message. We're living in a world where parents are refusing to vaccinate their children against a pandemic for fear of nonexistent side effects, while being okay with putting other families at risk by this decision. We live in a world horribly overpopulated, diseased, and polluted, while people continue to grow their families either because they don't believe the science, or don't care as long as they get a child who can satisfy their personal wishes, while dooming their children to deal with a world in an even worse shape than the one their parents had to grow up in. I don't see why these books always swing to extremes, instead of preaching a world where perhaps families can exist while having empathy for other families as well, from all over the globe.
Finally, I was disturbed at the implications of emotional turmoil a biological parent must go through when giving up a child. The sequences when Teresa falls into depression after giving up her surrogate child seemed tone deaf to the millions of surrogate parents who agree to give up their biological children every year. It also establishes an archaic attitude towards biological linkages between families. There are millions of families brought together by adoption that have the same, if not stronger, bonds than those connected by blood. I understand post partum depression exists, but the lengths Teresa is described as going to in naming one of her surrogate children I find offensive towards real surrogate parents.
The book also ended in an extremely disappointing way. I know they establish from the beginning the lack of hope there is for the future, but I was hoping for some kind of resolution more satisfying than what we got. If the authors continue to further the story in their podcast, I'm disappointed that this whole novel seems to be one big advertisement for said podcast.
The book also needs a typo pass. There were many misspellings and repeated or missing words that were fairly distracting.
All in all, the book was fairly entertaining, and perhaps I'm off base with my assumptions on the theme, tone, and message of this story. Perhaps I need to have listened to the podcast to better get the "point". But I feel if that is the case, readers need to be forewarned that this is an addendum to a story and world set up by the podcast. I appreciate what the book was trying to attempt in formatting it as a nonfictional, historical piece, but in trying to equally display two conflicting accounts in Dr. Gregory's story and the publisher's footnotes, I feel they canceled each other out, muddying the overall message.
TL;DR: An entertaining but ultimately confusing and disappointing read.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
October 30, 2021
I liked this one, but I felt like it was a bit slow getting into it. The ending felt rushed, but with that being said I did enjoy it. It will be one that sticks with me for a while. Dystopian fans should like it.
October 19, 2021
This is familiar and yet effective dystopian storytelling. Truths about our current world are revealed here, via an alternative history about a novel flu virus that spread beginning in 1916 during the Great War. Think Handmaid's Tale but with less rape and more apocalypse.
The prose is powerfully written. The musings of the narrator have the resounding wisdom of deep reflection, and the perspective that comes with having survived disaster and moved on. All of the following are sentences I copied from the text because I thought they were profound and meaningful:
Unfortunately this book is riddled with footnotes, editorial expository commentary, as this is framed as found written testimony. I hated these and found them distracting--the authors could have left it all for the end, like Margaret Atwood did in Handmaid's Tale. The purpose of the voice in the footnotes seems to be gaslighting from a place of academic or governmental authority, years into the future. The manuscript purports to be lived experience, but the footnotes directly contradict what's in the "primary text". Criticism of the new Society's decisions is defined as treason, for instance, when the narrator is clearly just trying to navigate her own life and help those around her, not necessarily change the world at large.
Then she wonders: "What if I could remove painful memories entirely?"
Uh oh. I saw The Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. Removing memories intentionally is a bad idea. And in the next chapter one of the footnotes mentions a "state sanctioned process that all children go through at the age of ten...the culmination and advancement of her work".
Uh oh.
The narrator thinks of this as a "method for separating people from their trauma...Was I not right to try to heal trauma?" Dr. Gabor Maté advocates for the wisdom and importance of trauma. Yes, we should move through it, but it informs us and makes us more compassionate. Equanimity is a pillar of Zen, but unfortunately in the book's universe, the government has decided, according to the increasingly condescending, dismissive footnotes: "Our world was almost destroyed by violence caused by inherited hatred and prejudice. By removing the ability to inherit, we have achieved a truly peaceful and equal world...Ultimately, it was decided that almost any interpersonal relationship has the potential to lead to conflict. We fight for our friends as well as our lovers. However...relationships between peers do not have the same inherited prejudices and fears of those between connected generations."
In short, parents and children are made to forget each other.
What happens next begs -- something. It gets pretty wild, and the details are scarce. The opaqueness of it all is what generates more psychological horror than if it were clearly described, I think. I did end up with some unanswered questions, but nothing for which I couldn't suspend disbelief. As the story's claims get wilder and wilder the footnote commentary protests more and more strongly, using words like "obviously ridiculous".
Since the Covid pandemic I've been thinking differently about numbers. A single baby down a well is heart-rending and inconceivable, but hundreds of thousands dead from coronavirus is just daily news, to be ignored in favor of looking at Travis and Kourtney's engagement photos or whatever.
We've tolerated some pretty bad evils in our society and the matters in this book are thought provoking. This calls attention to the corruption of something so tender, so sacred as the mother-child bond. What is tribalism? What are its effects? What is society FOR?
Then to find out there's a podcast set in the same universe? I'm intrigued, but with six seasons I'm a bit intimidated. I'll leave that alone, but this book was EXCELLENT!!
The prose is powerfully written. The musings of the narrator have the resounding wisdom of deep reflection, and the perspective that comes with having survived disaster and moved on. All of the following are sentences I copied from the text because I thought they were profound and meaningful:
I grew up at the end of the world, and all that mattered was what was for dinner...The end of the world comes with neither whimper nor bang. It unfurls its blossom slowly, majestically, one moist black petal at a time... The idea of an apocalypse is a comfort, because it makes death seem like something we can all experience together, in a single moment, a colorful firework burst. But mostly death is something you keep to yourself. In reality, the apocalypse is most likely to be you, alone in a room with the flu...I have known death all my life. I fear it, of course. But it is familiar. Death is a stray dog I have taken in and fed--not because I love it but because I don't want it biting me out of hunger.
Sometimes, for some people, the amount of labor it takes to accrue the supplies you need to live through a day outweighs the value of the day itself. You spend each day working, striving, fighting to live--only to wake up faced with another day you have to survive. The world was ending, so what good were values? What good was neighborly sentiment?...You do the best you can, and the only morality you have to cling to is the knowledge that you didn't choose to be there.
Once you believe that the end of the world has begun, you are complicit in its destruction.
It is one of the universe's deepest and cruelest jokes that it takes a lifetime to learn the lessons you need in order to live.
Traditions, custom, the ways of the world--they really are little more than everything we have taken for granted since our own childhood. Everything can change within one or two generations.
Unfortunately this book is riddled with footnotes, editorial expository commentary, as this is framed as found written testimony. I hated these and found them distracting--the authors could have left it all for the end, like Margaret Atwood did in Handmaid's Tale. The purpose of the voice in the footnotes seems to be gaslighting from a place of academic or governmental authority, years into the future. The manuscript purports to be lived experience, but the footnotes directly contradict what's in the "primary text". Criticism of the new Society's decisions is defined as treason, for instance, when the narrator is clearly just trying to navigate her own life and help those around her, not necessarily change the world at large.
Then she wonders: "What if I could remove painful memories entirely?"
Uh oh. I saw The Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. Removing memories intentionally is a bad idea. And in the next chapter one of the footnotes mentions a "state sanctioned process that all children go through at the age of ten...the culmination and advancement of her work".
Uh oh.
The narrator thinks of this as a "method for separating people from their trauma...Was I not right to try to heal trauma?" Dr. Gabor Maté advocates for the wisdom and importance of trauma. Yes, we should move through it, but it informs us and makes us more compassionate. Equanimity is a pillar of Zen, but unfortunately in the book's universe, the government has decided, according to the increasingly condescending, dismissive footnotes: "Our world was almost destroyed by violence caused by inherited hatred and prejudice. By removing the ability to inherit, we have achieved a truly peaceful and equal world...Ultimately, it was decided that almost any interpersonal relationship has the potential to lead to conflict. We fight for our friends as well as our lovers. However...relationships between peers do not have the same inherited prejudices and fears of those between connected generations."
In short, parents and children are made to forget each other.
What happens next begs -- something. It gets pretty wild, and the details are scarce. The opaqueness of it all is what generates more psychological horror than if it were clearly described, I think. I did end up with some unanswered questions, but nothing for which I couldn't suspend disbelief. As the story's claims get wilder and wilder the footnote commentary protests more and more strongly, using words like "obviously ridiculous".
Since the Covid pandemic I've been thinking differently about numbers. A single baby down a well is heart-rending and inconceivable, but hundreds of thousands dead from coronavirus is just daily news, to be ignored in favor of looking at Travis and Kourtney's engagement photos or whatever.
We've tolerated some pretty bad evils in our society and the matters in this book are thought provoking. This calls attention to the corruption of something so tender, so sacred as the mother-child bond. What is tribalism? What are its effects? What is society FOR?
Then to find out there's a podcast set in the same universe? I'm intrigued, but with six seasons I'm a bit intimidated. I'll leave that alone, but this book was EXCELLENT!!
December 11, 2021
So I don't often write reviews because I have a hard time articulating what I like or don't like about a book. It's just what it is. But this book really struck me, so here we are.
Before I start, some disclaimers:
1. At this point I will read/listen to anything Jeffrey Cranor and Janina Mathewson do. They created the Within the Wires podcast, and this novel is set in that world. So I am biased to enjoy this.
2. I listened to this as an audiobook but the only option Goodreads would give me for that is Audible, which I did not use. I purchased through Libro.fm which helped my local bookstore. The narrators - Kirsten Potter and Adepero Oduye - were excellent.; they should read all the things.
So, on to an actual review. I love an unreliable narrator. I've listened to the podcast that started this world (though you really don't need to in order to read this book) so I've got some opinions on which of the two narrators is truly unreliable, and I'll leave it at that to avoid spoilers.
The picture this book paints of an alternate 20th century, ravaged by war and disease and disaster, with a new world order rising from it is pretty fantastic. I really felt like I was listening to a memoir. Be warned - there are some parts of this that are not for the faint of heart, particularly if you're listening to the audiobook, but I don't find them gratuitous. Overall, I think Cranor and Matthewson do a great job of showing us who Dr. Gregory is, and via her observations, what has happened to her world.
You should read this.
Before I start, some disclaimers:
1. At this point I will read/listen to anything Jeffrey Cranor and Janina Mathewson do. They created the Within the Wires podcast, and this novel is set in that world. So I am biased to enjoy this.
2. I listened to this as an audiobook but the only option Goodreads would give me for that is Audible, which I did not use. I purchased through Libro.fm which helped my local bookstore. The narrators - Kirsten Potter and Adepero Oduye - were excellent.; they should read all the things.
So, on to an actual review. I love an unreliable narrator. I've listened to the podcast that started this world (though you really don't need to in order to read this book) so I've got some opinions on which of the two narrators is truly unreliable, and I'll leave it at that to avoid spoilers.
The picture this book paints of an alternate 20th century, ravaged by war and disease and disaster, with a new world order rising from it is pretty fantastic. I really felt like I was listening to a memoir. Be warned - there are some parts of this that are not for the faint of heart, particularly if you're listening to the audiobook, but I don't find them gratuitous. Overall, I think Cranor and Matthewson do a great job of showing us who Dr. Gregory is, and via her observations, what has happened to her world.
You should read this.
March 2, 2022
beautiful but really sad to read.
December 21, 2021
Whew! This book is seriously creepy and effective psychological horror. The authors make wry observations about human character and society along the way.
The book also made me consider the concept of memory more closely. They say a trick of memory is that we aren't remembering the event, but rather we are remembering the first time we remembered. The mind is tricky. After especially hard times, we remember time passing more quickly than it did, with more solid beginnings and endings than actual fluid reality.
These concepts are key in this fictional autobiography in an alternate 20th century reality.
The book also made me consider the concept of memory more closely. They say a trick of memory is that we aren't remembering the event, but rather we are remembering the first time we remembered. The mind is tricky. After especially hard times, we remember time passing more quickly than it did, with more solid beginnings and endings than actual fluid reality.
These concepts are key in this fictional autobiography in an alternate 20th century reality.
May 18, 2022
The synopsis was more interesting than the book itself. I wanted it to be over about halfway through.
Anyway. Irrelevant.
Anyway. Irrelevant.
May 6, 2022
I had several issues with this book.
1. Having the main character be the narrator ends up reading like the villain’s monologue in a cheesy super hero movie. It’s tedious. Also, the book is posited as Dr. Gregory’s written memoir, but it reads like internal monologue. It seems unlikely that a person would write repeated sentences as they think them in their head…
2. Dr. Gregory paints herself as a “nutty professor” type who is so “in love” with the work that she truly cannot see the bigger impacts it might have. To me, it seems more likely she is not that smart and just got too invested in a woo-woo meditation practice that reads as demonic (with vague descriptions that prevent it from being somewhat believable even for a sci-fi/dystopian work). The most likely explanation is that she’s a sociopath who claims to want to heal children’a trauma, but rather enjoys watching lab rats change and react to her “work.”
3. Although the main character describes having emotions, she seems to be fully disconnected from them. And, if she believes her work could heal trauma like she said it could, (and she’s the best practitioner there ever was) her trauma should have been at least somewhat healed—which would lead to more emotional depth and health. Instead she continues to read as a robot/sociopathic. Perhaps truly, her description of the “Watercolor Quiet” on page 171 most accurately describes her modus operandi: “The watercolor quiet doesn’t erase the mind so much as it reorganizes it, packs unnecessary information and feelings into boxes.“
I’m not a huge fan of post-apocalyptic worlds and scenarios, but I was drawn in by the promise of interesting psychological points. As a mental health professional, I was intrigued by the premise to read a commentary about connection between humans. It seems the author has little ability to connect with others, which undermines how effective she claims her work is.
The only positive for me was the negative description of a socialist-type government. As a conservative-leaning person I wholeheartedly agree that giving all power to the State is problematic and dangerous
1. Having the main character be the narrator ends up reading like the villain’s monologue in a cheesy super hero movie. It’s tedious. Also, the book is posited as Dr. Gregory’s written memoir, but it reads like internal monologue. It seems unlikely that a person would write repeated sentences as they think them in their head…
2. Dr. Gregory paints herself as a “nutty professor” type who is so “in love” with the work that she truly cannot see the bigger impacts it might have. To me, it seems more likely she is not that smart and just got too invested in a woo-woo meditation practice that reads as demonic (with vague descriptions that prevent it from being somewhat believable even for a sci-fi/dystopian work). The most likely explanation is that she’s a sociopath who claims to want to heal children’a trauma, but rather enjoys watching lab rats change and react to her “work.”
3. Although the main character describes having emotions, she seems to be fully disconnected from them. And, if she believes her work could heal trauma like she said it could, (and she’s the best practitioner there ever was) her trauma should have been at least somewhat healed—which would lead to more emotional depth and health. Instead she continues to read as a robot/sociopathic. Perhaps truly, her description of the “Watercolor Quiet” on page 171 most accurately describes her modus operandi: “The watercolor quiet doesn’t erase the mind so much as it reorganizes it, packs unnecessary information and feelings into boxes.“
I’m not a huge fan of post-apocalyptic worlds and scenarios, but I was drawn in by the promise of interesting psychological points. As a mental health professional, I was intrigued by the premise to read a commentary about connection between humans. It seems the author has little ability to connect with others, which undermines how effective she claims her work is.
The only positive for me was the negative description of a socialist-type government. As a conservative-leaning person I wholeheartedly agree that giving all power to the State is problematic and dangerous
August 16, 2023
“Memory is malleable. History is mutable.”
Omg. This book absolutely blew my mind. New addition to the favourites list! What a super freaky and intriguing dystopian alternative history. I fell head over heels for this book from the first paragraph. Big themes include:
- Censorship and history being written by the victors
- Medical experimentation and morals of scientific research
- Family structure and its impact on society
- Mind and memory control
- Conspiracy
I wrote down numerous quotes. Here are a few of them that stood out:
“I was born into the apocalypse. It's probably unhelpful to throw around a word like apocalypse, and to be honest, I couldn't tell you whether it's even apt. It looks like an apocalypse from here. Or from now. From a distance it looks like the world ended. Maybe it did. But, and I suspect that this isn't something people like to admit, I've seen a lot of people who lived through that time not admitting this, it didn't feel like an apocalypse. It just felt like life. For the most part anyway. I'm sure there were moments, you know, I'm sure there were times when the constant pressure of catastrophe shook my bones, but for the most part it went unnoticed, familiar like a nearby train that passes every day. Moments pass and it's hard to focus on the chaos about you, war and disease for miles around when what's in front of you is so close. I grew up at the end of the world and all that mattered was what was for dinner.”
“The idea of an apocalypse is a comfort, because it makes death seem like something we can all experience together in a single moment - a colorful firework burst. But mostly death is something you keep to yourself. In reality, the apocalypse is most likely to be you, alone in a room, with the flu.”
“Question the society, yes. But also question the questions themselves.”
Omg. This book absolutely blew my mind. New addition to the favourites list! What a super freaky and intriguing dystopian alternative history. I fell head over heels for this book from the first paragraph. Big themes include:
- Censorship and history being written by the victors
- Medical experimentation and morals of scientific research
- Family structure and its impact on society
- Mind and memory control
- Conspiracy
I wrote down numerous quotes. Here are a few of them that stood out:
“I was born into the apocalypse. It's probably unhelpful to throw around a word like apocalypse, and to be honest, I couldn't tell you whether it's even apt. It looks like an apocalypse from here. Or from now. From a distance it looks like the world ended. Maybe it did. But, and I suspect that this isn't something people like to admit, I've seen a lot of people who lived through that time not admitting this, it didn't feel like an apocalypse. It just felt like life. For the most part anyway. I'm sure there were moments, you know, I'm sure there were times when the constant pressure of catastrophe shook my bones, but for the most part it went unnoticed, familiar like a nearby train that passes every day. Moments pass and it's hard to focus on the chaos about you, war and disease for miles around when what's in front of you is so close. I grew up at the end of the world and all that mattered was what was for dinner.”
“The idea of an apocalypse is a comfort, because it makes death seem like something we can all experience together in a single moment - a colorful firework burst. But mostly death is something you keep to yourself. In reality, the apocalypse is most likely to be you, alone in a room, with the flu.”
“Question the society, yes. But also question the questions themselves.”
February 7, 2022
I'm a huge fan of the Within the Wires podcast, so when I found out there was going to be a book set in the universe, I had to get my hands on it. The authors state that you don't need to listen to the podcast in order to read this book as it's its own separate entity. I agree, however, listening to Within the Wires before reading this brings in yet another layer.
I loved how if we were in the alternate Within the Wires universe that this would have been a controversial text (and I love me a banned book). From the very first sentence, the reader isn't simply reading the manuscript, the reader becomes a character in this alternate reality. If you're reading the text, you've been vetted in this alternate reality, and can be trusted with the document. Brilliant.
Our narrator/author also isn't reliable. Much of what she writes has no proof, so was it even real? But also, Dr. Miriam Gregory specialized in alternating memories. During her career, did she manage to warp hers while working with her patients? Who's to say? That's merely my own conclusion, and we are reminded to make our own conclusions after critically thinking about what we'd read.
Finally, a massive kudos to Jeffery Craner and Janina Matthewson for how they wrote this fictional memoir. They made Dr. Gregory feel real. If I didn't know that this was a work of fiction, I would have found the narrator to be 100% real, even if her claims were controversial. And there was just enough legitimate history thrown in to help this feeling of authenticity along.
This was simply a brilliant book. I will definitely be reading it again.
I loved how if we were in the alternate Within the Wires universe that this would have been a controversial text (and I love me a banned book). From the very first sentence, the reader isn't simply reading the manuscript, the reader becomes a character in this alternate reality. If you're reading the text, you've been vetted in this alternate reality, and can be trusted with the document. Brilliant.
Our narrator/author also isn't reliable. Much of what she writes has no proof, so was it even real? But also, Dr. Miriam Gregory specialized in alternating memories. During her career, did she manage to warp hers while working with her patients? Who's to say? That's merely my own conclusion, and we are reminded to make our own conclusions after critically thinking about what we'd read.
Finally, a massive kudos to Jeffery Craner and Janina Matthewson for how they wrote this fictional memoir. They made Dr. Gregory feel real. If I didn't know that this was a work of fiction, I would have found the narrator to be 100% real, even if her claims were controversial. And there was just enough legitimate history thrown in to help this feeling of authenticity along.
This was simply a brilliant book. I will definitely be reading it again.
November 26, 2021
4.5 🌟 I was instantly captivated and drawn in by this book. I couldn’t turn the pages fast enough. An apocalyptic society set during the time when WWI and WWII would of taken place. Typically dystopian books happen in the future and not the past, so this story had a unique premise from the start. Written as a discovered autobiography with annotations, the reader is given conflicting portrayals of events that may or may not have happened. This book had smart writing, subtle humor, romance, sci-fi elements, dystopian themes, all rounded out with a thriller’s edge.
Certain things are never left answered and it’s all up to you to decide what was real and what wasn’t. I’m sure that was the authors intent, but I WANTED TO KNOW! 😂
This new book is a must read for fans of Station Eleven, and dystopian fiction fans.
Certain things are never left answered and it’s all up to you to decide what was real and what wasn’t. I’m sure that was the authors intent, but I WANTED TO KNOW! 😂
This new book is a must read for fans of Station Eleven, and dystopian fiction fans.
December 1, 2021
What a tedious waste of time - was going to DNF this one but I didn't have anything else to read so I just went with it, even though I was hate-reading.
This book read like 1984-ish creepypasta crossed with nanowrimo. The writing of the narrator felt very much like they were trying to fulfill a word count. It's rife with paragraphs and sentences that repeat words to unnecessary effect. One example:
"We lived like that for, I think, five years. Is that right? I don't think I was paying much attention then to the passage of time, but I think it was around five years. Five years of dizzying output for Teresa. Five years of gray dissatisfaction for me."
You just read the phrase "five years" four times and the author isn't even sure that's what she was referring to, nor do I think it matters? Like sure they want to establish that the author's memory is unreliable but why take the time to write like this if not to fulfill a word count?
It happens a lot. Just, over and over. It's infuriating to read.
"When I was younger, I went on a roller coaster. I say younger, but I don't mean young, not really - not as young as you're supposed to be the first time you go on a roller coaster. I suppose I was around thirty-five? Maybe a bit older? As you can understand, I'm sure, there wasn't a lot of opportunity for roller coasters in my childhood."
To me it sounds like an old person meandering through a story to anyone who will listen. Which, given the age of the narrator, is not unreasonable. But she's just holed up in a room writing this so you'd think she'd keep the water-treading to a minimum so as not to waste the energy of writing extra words.
This paragraph in particular reminded me of those points in nanowrimo when you are behind on your word count and just trying to get there by narrating your own thoughts:
"Maybe I'm lying. Maybe I'm not horrified. I don't feel horrified. I don't feel much of anything. Just tired. I'm so tired. It's taking everything I have to keep going. But stay with me. We're nearly there."
Both the narrator and the editors BUILD and BUILD to this supposedly dramatic climax that didn't come until just a few pages before the end of the book.
And that climax was basically - for-profit prisons! Brainwashing! People acting like they were on Haldol! This was very anticlimactic for me, even with the low expectations I had.
I found it very annoying that the narrator just dropped her cassettes in the mail, contacted a journalist, and then retreated into a room to die without actually.. doing anything. If you're going to write something revolutionary why package it as a memoir, and a wordy one at that? Why not something more urgent?
In the epilogue the narrators address the reader directly with the mission to destroy or return the manuscript. The audience, which has been carefully selected, is expected not to fall sway to this propaganda, and must never disseminate the information therein. I think the editors were actually publishing this memoir in service of whatever revolution was going to tear down the walls of the institution, and I think this was supposed to be clever. I do not like the "you make the call" stuff. I didn't know until reading the author bios that Jeffrey Cranor is one of the Welcome to Night Vale people, and if I had known, welp.
It just absolutely did not work for me.
This book read like 1984-ish creepypasta crossed with nanowrimo. The writing of the narrator felt very much like they were trying to fulfill a word count. It's rife with paragraphs and sentences that repeat words to unnecessary effect. One example:
"We lived like that for, I think, five years. Is that right? I don't think I was paying much attention then to the passage of time, but I think it was around five years. Five years of dizzying output for Teresa. Five years of gray dissatisfaction for me."
You just read the phrase "five years" four times and the author isn't even sure that's what she was referring to, nor do I think it matters? Like sure they want to establish that the author's memory is unreliable but why take the time to write like this if not to fulfill a word count?
It happens a lot. Just, over and over. It's infuriating to read.
"When I was younger, I went on a roller coaster. I say younger, but I don't mean young, not really - not as young as you're supposed to be the first time you go on a roller coaster. I suppose I was around thirty-five? Maybe a bit older? As you can understand, I'm sure, there wasn't a lot of opportunity for roller coasters in my childhood."
To me it sounds like an old person meandering through a story to anyone who will listen. Which, given the age of the narrator, is not unreasonable. But she's just holed up in a room writing this so you'd think she'd keep the water-treading to a minimum so as not to waste the energy of writing extra words.
This paragraph in particular reminded me of those points in nanowrimo when you are behind on your word count and just trying to get there by narrating your own thoughts:
"Maybe I'm lying. Maybe I'm not horrified. I don't feel horrified. I don't feel much of anything. Just tired. I'm so tired. It's taking everything I have to keep going. But stay with me. We're nearly there."
Both the narrator and the editors BUILD and BUILD to this supposedly dramatic climax that didn't come until just a few pages before the end of the book.
And that climax was basically - for-profit prisons! Brainwashing! People acting like they were on Haldol! This was very anticlimactic for me, even with the low expectations I had.
I found it very annoying that the narrator just dropped her cassettes in the mail, contacted a journalist, and then retreated into a room to die without actually.. doing anything. If you're going to write something revolutionary why package it as a memoir, and a wordy one at that? Why not something more urgent?
In the epilogue the narrators address the reader directly with the mission to destroy or return the manuscript. The audience, which has been carefully selected, is expected not to fall sway to this propaganda, and must never disseminate the information therein. I think the editors were actually publishing this memoir in service of whatever revolution was going to tear down the walls of the institution, and I think this was supposed to be clever. I do not like the "you make the call" stuff. I didn't know until reading the author bios that Jeffrey Cranor is one of the Welcome to Night Vale people, and if I had known, welp.
It just absolutely did not work for me.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
November 14, 2021
I am 50/50 on this one. I absolutely loved the autobiographical style and footnotes that told much of the “true” history of the alternate reality and disputed much of the story. However, I did find it slower moving than I would’ve liked for not much of a payoff at the end. It was definitely different and I am now intrigued enough to want to listen to the authors podcast.
December 29, 2021
A unique take on the importance of family and relationships. In post-war Europe after a devastating war was started by fighting families, society as a whole decides that the family unit as a concept needs to be destroyed, and children should be taken away at birth and raised to forget their parents.
I loved the format of this book. It's an autobiography told by an unreliable narrator, and notes have been written by scholars years later. At first the notes add clarity to the story (and give the reader more context of the world without info-dumping at the start), but they become more and more irritated with the original author as the story goes on, and will point out things that absolutely did not happen (at least as far as the scholars are concerned). It's left up to the reader to decide how much of the story is true, and what the purpose of the book was.
I honestly do not feel like I fully understood the story or got everything from it that I was supposed to, so I'm worried that as time goes on I'm going to forget this book all together. Hopefully once I have some time to really think about it I'll make some more connections. For now I'm rounding up my rating to a 4.
I loved the format of this book. It's an autobiography told by an unreliable narrator, and notes have been written by scholars years later. At first the notes add clarity to the story (and give the reader more context of the world without info-dumping at the start), but they become more and more irritated with the original author as the story goes on, and will point out things that absolutely did not happen (at least as far as the scholars are concerned). It's left up to the reader to decide how much of the story is true, and what the purpose of the book was.
I honestly do not feel like I fully understood the story or got everything from it that I was supposed to, so I'm worried that as time goes on I'm going to forget this book all together. Hopefully once I have some time to really think about it I'll make some more connections. For now I'm rounding up my rating to a 4.
April 26, 2022
The story of a girl who survived through 'The Reckoning' and lived with smart and powerful women who changed her perspective in life, and literally changed her whole path in life; from an orphan who survived by switching houses every now and then, looking for food and shelter to a psychologist who can mend minds by practicing the Watercolor Quiet that she developed while being sustained in prison.
Albeit fiction, the 'memoir' felt really real (and at one point, gory too). The part where the title finally made sense really was super gory so if you're not up for that, don't.
The storyline was very unique, however I really wanted an explanation to the ending, to what happened to Teresa and what happened to the institution. I wish that there's an extended part where I can read what actually happened instead.
The story build up was interesting, especially when Miriam first discovered Watercolor Quiet and developed it through years and years of experimenting until it finally works and helped children forget their past. The plot twist in the middle was also unexpected.
3.8 stars! ⭐️
Thank you Times Read for sending me a copy of this book for an exchange with an honest review!
Albeit fiction, the 'memoir' felt really real (and at one point, gory too). The part where the title finally made sense really was super gory so if you're not up for that, don't.
The storyline was very unique, however I really wanted an explanation to the ending, to what happened to Teresa and what happened to the institution. I wish that there's an extended part where I can read what actually happened instead.
The story build up was interesting, especially when Miriam first discovered Watercolor Quiet and developed it through years and years of experimenting until it finally works and helped children forget their past. The plot twist in the middle was also unexpected.
3.8 stars! ⭐️
Thank you Times Read for sending me a copy of this book for an exchange with an honest review!
March 26, 2023
god I think I’m gonna vomit I am really feeling this below the ribs
psychology, research, messed up dystopian world where familial connections are outlawed??? descriptive flowery writing at times???
the use of different story telling methods to world build???? the footnotes??? the feeling that you don’t really know what happens in the end??? or what happened at all ???? (if we were villains im reminded of you)
also apparently this is set in a world based off the writers’ podcast???? I had no idea until I read other reviews and I was perfectly fine reading this, I do think I’m gonna go listen to those podcasts now
psychology, research, messed up dystopian world where familial connections are outlawed??? descriptive flowery writing at times???
the use of different story telling methods to world build???? the footnotes??? the feeling that you don’t really know what happens in the end??? or what happened at all ???? (if we were villains im reminded of you)
also apparently this is set in a world based off the writers’ podcast???? I had no idea until I read other reviews and I was perfectly fine reading this, I do think I’m gonna go listen to those podcasts now
January 7, 2022
4,5 stars
There is no need to listen to the podcast before reading the book! Myself I didn’t even realise they were set in the same universe before I’d read half the book.
Thought provoking and scary. Probably an excellent book for a book club because it’s filled with moral dilemmas!
There is no need to listen to the podcast before reading the book! Myself I didn’t even realise they were set in the same universe before I’d read half the book.
Thought provoking and scary. Probably an excellent book for a book club because it’s filled with moral dilemmas!
September 16, 2025
4.5/5 ⭐💫
“the apocalypse is you, alone in a room, dying of the flu”
I approached this book without prior knowledge or expectations, as I don't listen to the podcast that is book's universe takes place in. To my surprise, it was intriguing and captivating. I enjoyed the unreliable narrator and dubious publisher, making it a distinct read. The autobiographical style resonated with me, especially narratives using found media that challenge their format. However, the novel lacks urgency. Dr. Gregory's revelations could be monumental for the New Society, but her method of revealing them is lackluster. She seems to believe the past is unchangeable, recounting her history to explain how events led to her need to expose a dark secret. Yet, her rationale remains unclear, and her storytelling is excessively meandering, which detracts from the reading experience.
But there are just so many beautiful passages throughout this book, and I love the writing style that it fits as a whole. I will be checking out the podcast that this book universe taken place in.
🔬👩⚕️
“the apocalypse is you, alone in a room, dying of the flu”
I approached this book without prior knowledge or expectations, as I don't listen to the podcast that is book's universe takes place in. To my surprise, it was intriguing and captivating. I enjoyed the unreliable narrator and dubious publisher, making it a distinct read. The autobiographical style resonated with me, especially narratives using found media that challenge their format. However, the novel lacks urgency. Dr. Gregory's revelations could be monumental for the New Society, but her method of revealing them is lackluster. She seems to believe the past is unchangeable, recounting her history to explain how events led to her need to expose a dark secret. Yet, her rationale remains unclear, and her storytelling is excessively meandering, which detracts from the reading experience.
But there are just so many beautiful passages throughout this book, and I love the writing style that it fits as a whole. I will be checking out the podcast that this book universe taken place in.
🔬👩⚕️
June 7, 2022
Unique take on an alternate history with a sci-fi like twist to it, but I found it a little on the boring side. Memoir is not a genre I read, so a fictional memoir doesn't really hold much appeal to me.
November 3, 2025
Alternate history dystopian novel told as a found memoir. A psychologist writes of how she discovered a method of therapy that could be used to bring peace to survivors of a decades-long world war. However, she later suspects that the good thing she created is secretly being adapted into something to be used for darker purposes. The footnotes added to this manuscript by the publisher sometimes contradict the facts in her story. But who is really telling the truth here? This book gave me lots to think about.
December 23, 2025
i had a lot of fun with this one despite not much ever happening? the format and dual entries were captivating enough to carry me through the lack of plot
November 4, 2025
11/04/2025 EDIT: Re-reading it, I loved this book even more than the first time. I just want to see the New Society to crumble to dust, I have to add. Splendidly narrated.
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Reading this book at the almost-end of a pandemic was an eerie experience but reading its last pages while a war was going to explode in Central Europe sent chills down my spine.
"You Feel It Just Below the Ribs" is the fictional biography of Dr. Miriam Gregory. Miriam lives in a ucrony, a distopic ucrony, where WWII didn't happen. What happened was, instead, The Great Reckoning: a devastating chain of events (global wars, pollution, volcanic eruptions, earthquakes, a pandemic) that wiped out 3/4 of humanity and destroyed almost any semblance of society. Following this terrible period, ending in 1943, human beings decide to abolish Nations and Families.
Because Families, they think, are the primary source of tribalism, nationalism and wars.
Miriam was a young survivor of the Great Reckoning - an orphan, forced to take care of herself at the green age of 12 years old - and "You Feel It Just Below the Ribs" follows her struggle to stay alive and, then, to become part of the New Society, that emerges from the ashes of the old one.
Problem is: Miriam is the doctor that developed the "Watercolor Quiet", a method that helps victims of the war to "forget their traumas" to start a new life without the burden of memories of horrible past experiences. And there are people, in the New Society, who want to use this method to make "rebellious people" more pliable.
Miriam's memoir is presented with a warning by the fictitious curator of this fictional biography,who remembers us readers that Miriam's critique of the New Society can't be take for granted, because it shakes the foundations of the principles the New Society used to rebuild itself.
You don't need to know "Within The Wires", the podcast that inspired this book, because this memoir is a standalone. But I will strongly recommend you go to listen to its six seasons, because it's an eerie and beautiful example of speculative fiction and sometimes it hits too close to home with its description of a society of weak and isolated and brainwashed individuals. And because it will help you understand better the fascinating and distorted world that survived The Great Reckoning.
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"People tend to look at events of mass eradication as if they're simple. Finite. A pandemic kills a hundred thousand. An earthquake kills five thousand. And then it's done. We tend not to look too closely, so we miss the fact that disease, wars, and storms lingers long after they're gone. [...] The idea of an apocalypse is a comfort, because it makes death seem like something we can all experience together, in a single moment, a colorful firework burst. But mostly death is something you keep to yourself. In reality, the apocalypse is most likely to be you, alone in a room with the flu"
Reading this book at the almost-end of a pandemic was an eerie experience but reading its last pages while a war was going to explode in Central Europe sent chills down my spine.
"You Feel It Just Below the Ribs" is the fictional biography of Dr. Miriam Gregory. Miriam lives in a ucrony, a distopic ucrony, where WWII didn't happen. What happened was, instead, The Great Reckoning: a devastating chain of events (global wars, pollution, volcanic eruptions, earthquakes, a pandemic) that wiped out 3/4 of humanity and destroyed almost any semblance of society. Following this terrible period, ending in 1943, human beings decide to abolish Nations and Families.
Because Families, they think, are the primary source of tribalism, nationalism and wars.
Miriam was a young survivor of the Great Reckoning - an orphan, forced to take care of herself at the green age of 12 years old - and "You Feel It Just Below the Ribs" follows her struggle to stay alive and, then, to become part of the New Society, that emerges from the ashes of the old one.
Problem is: Miriam is the doctor that developed the "Watercolor Quiet", a method that helps victims of the war to "forget their traumas" to start a new life without the burden of memories of horrible past experiences. And there are people, in the New Society, who want to use this method to make "rebellious people" more pliable.
Miriam's memoir is presented with a warning by the fictitious curator of this fictional biography,who remembers us readers that Miriam's critique of the New Society can't be take for granted, because it shakes the foundations of the principles the New Society used to rebuild itself.
You don't need to know "Within The Wires", the podcast that inspired this book, because this memoir is a standalone. But I will strongly recommend you go to listen to its six seasons, because it's an eerie and beautiful example of speculative fiction and sometimes it hits too close to home with its description of a society of weak and isolated and brainwashed individuals. And because it will help you understand better the fascinating and distorted world that survived The Great Reckoning.
October 22, 2022
This book is written as the memoir of the architect of a global dystopian system - someone who learned how to erase trauma by erasing memories with a mysterious technique called the Watercolor Quiet, experimented with it on children from when she was a child herself, and developed a technique for large-scale implementation… and then, surprise surprise, the enterprising and cynical decided to turn it into a tool for mass societal control.
I love this style of book - it’s written as the recently discovered pages of a memoir which are being published in the interest of “free speech” - while being full of footnotes from the editor letting you know the “real” facts. Of course, as you go on, these footnotes start to sound less and less objective.
It made me think of this book I read several years about Berlin in the 1930s. It was a history book, written in the 1970s and clearly intended to be academic, but I remember distinctly one section where the author wrote gleefully about how 1930s Berlin society found acceptable much more open sexual expression and practices than had been previously allowed - including “perversions” such as homosexuality. It’s one the things I love about studying history even if I find the contents horrifying - how you’re always getting two stories: the story the historian thinks they’re telling, and the story about the historian themself. I love any book (or podcast!) that’s about just how wide that dichotomy can be.
I’m going to list off some of the things I enjoyed about this book:
(1) how it’s thinking about the value of biological family without ignoring queer people,
(2) the brief utopian society versus the later “utopian” Society - obviously inspired in some ways by the history of communism in the 19th and 20th centuries but in a far less delusional way than things inspired by the communism usually are,
(3) the way it’s complementary to the Within the Wires podcast without being repetitive - these authors are crushing the multimedia storytelling process in a way others could really learn from, and
(4) the entire concept of the Watercolor Quiet.
If I had one critique about this book it’s that the authors could have pushed it a lot further. I sometimes felt they were posing interesting questions but were opting to leave them open-ended so they didn’t have to commit to answering them. However, this is a minimal complaint and in general this was really enjoyable to read. I hope these authors write more together!
I love this style of book - it’s written as the recently discovered pages of a memoir which are being published in the interest of “free speech” - while being full of footnotes from the editor letting you know the “real” facts. Of course, as you go on, these footnotes start to sound less and less objective.
It made me think of this book I read several years about Berlin in the 1930s. It was a history book, written in the 1970s and clearly intended to be academic, but I remember distinctly one section where the author wrote gleefully about how 1930s Berlin society found acceptable much more open sexual expression and practices than had been previously allowed - including “perversions” such as homosexuality. It’s one the things I love about studying history even if I find the contents horrifying - how you’re always getting two stories: the story the historian thinks they’re telling, and the story about the historian themself. I love any book (or podcast!) that’s about just how wide that dichotomy can be.
I’m going to list off some of the things I enjoyed about this book:
(1) how it’s thinking about the value of biological family without ignoring queer people,
(2) the brief utopian society versus the later “utopian” Society - obviously inspired in some ways by the history of communism in the 19th and 20th centuries but in a far less delusional way than things inspired by the communism usually are,
(3) the way it’s complementary to the Within the Wires podcast without being repetitive - these authors are crushing the multimedia storytelling process in a way others could really learn from, and
(4) the entire concept of the Watercolor Quiet.
If I had one critique about this book it’s that the authors could have pushed it a lot further. I sometimes felt they were posing interesting questions but were opting to leave them open-ended so they didn’t have to commit to answering them. However, this is a minimal complaint and in general this was really enjoyable to read. I hope these authors write more together!
December 2, 2021
Are you familiar with the War of the Worlds radio broadcast where people began to believe it was actually happening?
I felt a little like those listeners when reading this book.
Written in an autobiographical format, we follow Dr. Miram Gregory’s life during the Great Reckoning. She writes of her trials through the First World War, the influenza pandemic, and even being imprisoned as a child.
From all these travesties throughout Europe, The New Society arises. It believes that any attachment to tribal and traditional families must be forbidden for lasting peace. Dr. Gregory is not opposed, as she likens herself a researcher in the meditative detachment method called the Watercolor Quiet.
As Dr. Gregory gets more involved in implementing this psychological detachment, she realizes something much darker at play here than she ever intended. She plans to expose the system and the truth, but did any of it ever really happen?
Okay, so the way this book is formatted, with Miriam’s story said to be discovered as a manuscript, and with added footnotes for clarification, it really makes you feel like you are reading an actual autobiography. If you enjoy alternative realities and dystopian societies, this one will get you thinking.
Thank you to @harperperennial for this gifted copy.
I felt a little like those listeners when reading this book.
Written in an autobiographical format, we follow Dr. Miram Gregory’s life during the Great Reckoning. She writes of her trials through the First World War, the influenza pandemic, and even being imprisoned as a child.
From all these travesties throughout Europe, The New Society arises. It believes that any attachment to tribal and traditional families must be forbidden for lasting peace. Dr. Gregory is not opposed, as she likens herself a researcher in the meditative detachment method called the Watercolor Quiet.
As Dr. Gregory gets more involved in implementing this psychological detachment, she realizes something much darker at play here than she ever intended. She plans to expose the system and the truth, but did any of it ever really happen?
Okay, so the way this book is formatted, with Miriam’s story said to be discovered as a manuscript, and with added footnotes for clarification, it really makes you feel like you are reading an actual autobiography. If you enjoy alternative realities and dystopian societies, this one will get you thinking.
Thank you to @harperperennial for this gifted copy.
February 19, 2024
What did I just reeeeaaaddd????
This book is an addictive drug trip. Everything makes no sense while also making horrifyingly clear sense. The narrator is entirely unreliable, as are the footnotes added by a possibly very biased commentor after the fact.
I know this book is fiction. I know it because it takes place in the 1900s and nothing that happened in the book actually happened in our history.
But it feels real. It feels tangible and horrifying, and so utterly close to home and human. I'm left a little numb with dread. I want answers and I want explanations, both of which I shall never get.
This book is an absolute masterpiece and if you like anything written in unconventional ways, alternate earth realities, and a dash of unsettling horror, this is definitely for you.
I'm looking forward to reading this again in a few years.
This book is an addictive drug trip. Everything makes no sense while also making horrifyingly clear sense. The narrator is entirely unreliable, as are the footnotes added by a possibly very biased commentor after the fact.
I know this book is fiction. I know it because it takes place in the 1900s and nothing that happened in the book actually happened in our history.
But it feels real. It feels tangible and horrifying, and so utterly close to home and human. I'm left a little numb with dread. I want answers and I want explanations, both of which I shall never get.
This book is an absolute masterpiece and if you like anything written in unconventional ways, alternate earth realities, and a dash of unsettling horror, this is definitely for you.
I'm looking forward to reading this again in a few years.
May 18, 2024
Utopia always comes at a price. The choice has to be made every time as to who will pay it. I don't even know where to start about all the things this book made me feel. I did feel this right below the ribs, and within them, and well above them. When we start over it is hard to know where things will go next. It's why all the meddling (genocide) the US has done in the Middle East has never fixed anything (if there was truly anything of substance that needed fixing). When you create a power vacuum, you never know who will come out on top. You never know what the next era will look like. When that much is lost, that many people, that many institutions, it is unsurprising to create a culture that will erase those divides that lead to that point. But people are imperfect. Memory is imperfect. And no watercolor quiet can erase all the things we have seen. All the loves we have had. All the connections that ground us to this tattered ground. What our Doctor here did was the best she knew how for a long time. And when all you are doing is surviving there is a point where you realize that survival is not an endpoint. And all the things you've done to get there, have led you to a place you never wanted to find yourself in. Working within the confines of this story, whether the Doctor's story is true or not, the same point is proven. Someone pays the price for perfection, for liberation, for absolution. Although her account cannot be confirmed in anyway when I remembered at the end the way in which Edward's (I suddenly don't remember if that's his name, but you know who I'm speaking of) body was found...ribs splayed, dissected, and mutilated. The way Mariana (I fear I am losing my mind because idk if this is her name either) described the experimentation was conducted on her...fuck. Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck...I don't know where to take this review from here as I do not know where to take myself after this book. In the end are we no more monsters than the monsters we enable? But who is the monster then? Because we must believe one of these accounts to be truth. The records the Collective (fuck is this their name) published. The Doctor. Or at least some amalgamation of them. Memory is as imperfect as we are. Fitting a story about the manipulation of memory has no true conclusiveness in plot. What happened? We will never know. Now as I write I realize that the Doctor's extensive time in the watercolor quiet likely, inadvertently, altered her own memories in ways she cannot grasp. I believe her account in the major points. The things she has learned, the things that shaped her, but the finite details? Probably all confabulations. But then what is truth? Is there a universal truth? Because we cannot confirm it does that make it a lie? Back to my realization in the last few minutes of the book, is the fact that Edward died in the same way Mariana describes not highly incriminating? But I guess we cannot confirm Mariana's account. We don't have the recordings. I cannot lie and say that I would not do the same. That I would not use my wits and my devotion to my family to do exactly what Mariana did. But would I find the sacrifice worth it? Would I allow myself to be splayed open and dissected, poked and prodded, and eventually reduced to a shell of a person, if that meant the end of war? The end of famine? The end of suffering? Equality on a scale we cannot fathom at our current juncture. Would my desire to see and protect my siblings outweigh that? Would I be willing to pay that price? Because I don't think I would be able to resist if I remembered, and I know I would be smart enough to evade the watercolor quiet. Utopia comes at a price. Who lives. Who dies. Who pays it. The thing about a power vacuum is someone always wins. And the loser always pays the price. Detached idealistic academics win. And poor families who survived the worst thing to ever happen to humanity pay the price by giving up the people they fought so hard to protect. Is the world really a better place disconnected? Is that not just another form of suffering? We are designed by millions of years of evolution to protect our tribe. It is how each of us on this Earth have made it here. It is fundamental biology to care. To love. Is the watercolor quiet even possible? Is there really even a way to erase our past without the trauma and suffering of whatever has happening in the Southwest (fuck memory is imperfect isn't it?) wing? Because I would not go easy. I know I would not go easily into the watercolored dissociation. This might be the longest review I have ever written for anything I have ever consumed. I really am reeling. I have written so much and nothing all the same. Just as our dear Doctor. Because in the end does her account matter? If the people releasing it discredit it ever other word. There could not be more condescension if they tried. And if even if true and backed in fact, would people care? People do not care for the lives of those imprisoned in our world, would they care about in this one? Would they not just say the price is worth it? Utopia with the "worst of us" paying the price. But is the "worst of us" those unwilling to let go of love? Would they care? Would it matter? Would it change anything? I doubt it would. I doubt this would change anything even if based in fact and maybe that is the saddest part of this. Our Doctor gave up everything she loved and none of it mattered. She died lost and alone, after irrevocably changing the world, for absolutely nothing. Just to have her words splayed and dissected until their credence is all but gone. Utopia comes at a cost. Our doctor built it and paid it all the same. What a sad little life. But aren't they all?
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
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