Z’s Reviews > How High We Go in the Dark > Status Update

They don't stay around long enough to have a lasting impact. Which is def fine if I'm getting more world-building. I just need something more tangible I think

I’d give this a 3.5

it definitely should not say “a novel” on the cover b/c this is clearly a short story collection with a thematic through line but it doesn’t allow much character development or reader attachment to occur. Characters do not have distinct voices so each new chapter just felt like a hammering home of the shared grief etc

I did yearn for more of the sci-fi element and got it in concentration towards the end, but good golly the actual nature of the virus changing heart cells to brain cells etc etc is crazy! That alone is so scary I wanted to dive deeper into that but alas that was not the point of this novel and I can respect it buttttt

The more personal stories while a little boring in comparison, still did accomplish the message that grief is prevalent and global while still being deeply individual. The highlights are the euthanasia theme park which was particularly sad as well as the talking pig mostly for the voice acting

Review:

This was a collection of short stories set in the same universe across time and while it wasn’t a long read it did take a bit to get me into it. My fave chaps are ofc the ones with less mundane scopes incl the opening where we see the onset of the virus, the afterlife chapter lending the book it’s title, and the founder of the planet chapter where we get a large tie-in to all we’ve read up until this point.

Notes:

- oh god money has been replaced by mortuary crypto LMAOOO
- LOTR ref!
- VA in pig son did his thing
- The virus turning brain cells to heart cells etc is creepyyyyyy
- w/o the audiobook I'm starting to think these characters have the same voice
- Founders!
- 6000 years... geez

World builder sent to earth to plant seed, but in her shape shifting to humanoid there was an imperfection passed down to her Neanderthal daughter Annie thus arctic virus, she was told to observe only but she wanted to make earth feel like home, started a family

Man working at funeral services falls in love with a client who dies and after setting her body to sea as she wished he brings her back in

Woman goes back to visit her family in Japan who she ran away from her

At the end of the world one neighbor hosts a bbq party

Akira has VR relationship with woman who has a sick daughter and estranged father, coincidentally he gets employed by her fathers, she eventually does euthanasia in her and her daughter

Yamato ship is built, Clara's mom and daughter from 1st chap, they head to a planet 50 light years away, she and another passenger paint murals to spruce up the ship, at their destination they receive a delayed message that earth found a cure and is bouncing back, they keep finding planets not fit for earthlings and have traveled over 6000 years spending at most a year awake they make it to Kepler