Severance

Ling Ma

Book cover for Severance by Ling Ma

Its incredible this book was written before COVID because it hits many of the same narrative beats as the real-world pandemic, just with global annihilation. The ending was incredibly underwhelming, but I don’t know what I expected from an apocalyptic novel. I wish the book had gone deeper into the details of the sickness itself, since it seemed deeply rooted in nostalgia, but I understand how this didn’t fit the narrative. This is a story about severing ties and being forced to let go in thousands of ways, some large and some small.