Severance: Ling Ma

Rating: 4/5

"Who knew what was true. The sheer density of information and misinformation at the End, encapsulated in news articles and message-board theories and clickbait traps that had propagated hysterically through retweets and shares, had effectively rendered us more ignorant, more helpless, more innocent in our stupidity."

It’s an unknown date in modern New York City. The “Shen Fever” has come and the world is unrecognizable. Those affected spend what remains of their life in a mindless loop, repeating familiar action again and again until the end.

But Candace Chen survives. Upon fleeing New York City, she is discovered by a ragtag group of fellow survivors and together they make their way to the Facility, a shell of a mall outside of Chicago where they plan to shelter and begin anew. When Candace’s secret is aired, she becomes a prisoner among survivors and must fight to protect more than just her own life.

Severance explores familiar themes of disconnect in an unfamiliar setting. The story drew me in most because of how relatable Candace’s life felt – I read about her increasingly sparse daily commute to her office job in New York while I commuted to and from my office job in Boston (although mine was on an extremely crowded underground!). As she described her semi-relationship with Jonathan, I thought of friends who find themselves in the same situation. Her musings on social media and the daily grind and the need for community, these are all things that make her story ours.

But then there is the unrelatable. Candace has no family, no connections to society. Much like her parents before her who received official severance from China when she was a child, Candace has been severed for many years from a normal life. And, this loneliness may be what saves her in the end.

Candace’s story is well-written and gripping. I sped through this book and didn’t want it to end. I was disappointed when it did, but mostly because the ending didn’t provide any closure. Didn’t answer a single unanswered question. If it weren’t for the cliched ending, in which Candace unceremoniously runs out of gas and walks into the shell city of Chicago, this book would have been a 5/5.

As it is, enjoy the story and the characters, but know that you are going to be left with more questions than answers - unless Ling Ma is going to bring us a Severance 2?! We will have to wait and see.

"A day off meant we could do things we'd always meant to do. Like go to the Botanical Garden, the Frick Collection, or something. Read some fiction. Leisure, the problem with the modern condition was the dearth of leisure. And finally, it took a force of nature to interrupt our routines. We just wanted to hit the reset button. We just wanted to feel flush with time to do things of no quantifiable value, our hopeful side pursuits like writing or drawing or something, something other than what we did for money. Like learn to be a better photographer. And even if we didn't get around to it on that day, our free day, maybe it was enough just to feel the possibility that we could if we wanted to. which is another way of saying that we wanted to feel young, though many of us were that if nothing else."