Reading is better together

"A tender, strange and intellectually restless novel about time, memory, loneliness and the fragile ways people become connected through words. It moves between intimate teenage despair and much larger questions about history, technology, nature and whether reading someone’s story can become a form of responsibility. Some of its philosophical detours occasionally slow the emotional momentum, but they also give the book its unusual depth. What stayed with me most was its refusal to treat suffering as something neat or easily resolved. It allows uncertainty to remain uncertainty. Quietly devastating, formally playful and much warmer than its darkest moments initially suggest. A book about finding another person’s voice and realizing that simply paying attention may already change both of you."