gods monsters and the lucky peach by kelly robson

I constantly have a novel going, or if I need a breather, I go for an anthology and let the short fiction tide me over. I honestly don’t think that has ever happened to me.

I had to read non-fiction for almost a week to get over this book hangover. I just couldn’t bear the thought of giving myself to another set of characters in another world. Is this a novelette? Are such distinctions increasingly meaningless? I managed to stretch it out over the course of 5 days of reading, I think.īut the real indication of how much this book shook me? I didn’t read another piece of fiction for SIX DAYS. It’s like 220 something pages? I expected it to feel like a novella, but it read more like a full-length novel. Both are passionate about what they’re doing, and they end up butting heads over it, and watching their relationship grow and change wasperhaps the best part of the book. The cross-generational (non-romantic, non-familial) relationship between Minh and Kiki is a beautiful thing. No one shames her about it, she never stops and thinks “What might have been.” She’s allowed to be a woman who has dedicated her life to the very important work of rebuilding rivers. It’s pretty clear that Minh is essentially married to her work, and the book doesn’t make a big deal out of it.

She’s very matter-of-fact about her prosthesis. She lost her legs to illness in her youth and had them replaced with six octopus-like limbs. They have their flaws, and their conflicts with each other, and it makes them just so much more rich and well-developed. Not in a “too good to be true” sort of way, either. They weren’t just believable, they were likable. I think it’s largely because the characters are crafted with such nuance, they felt like real people and I was incredibly invested in what happened to them. It’s hard for me to exactly pin point why this book worked so well for me. What does happen, when people are still working into their 80s, 90s, maybe even past 100, and there’s not enough work and money to go around? How far would a young person go to get a coveted job? When you see the lengths that young Kiki is willing to go to get the approval of Minh and be allowed to be part of the time travel mission, you may have to put the book down for a moment and have some feels. It’s easy to find parallels to our own world, with an older generation that has some strong opinions about how the younger generation is doing things, and a younger generation that just wants to be given a chance. It takes a look at a world ravaged by ecological disaster and plague, and wonders how people would rebuild.īut there’s a lot more going on. On the surface, Lucky Peach (as I’m going to call it for short) is a book about the future and time travel. When I started reading Gods, Monsters, and the Lucky Peachby Kelly Robson, I thought “This seems like a pretty good book.” A day or two later, I couldn’t stop thinking about it.

Gods monsters and the lucky peach by kelly robson