Five Stars

Best for:
Those who enjoyed the less out-there episodes of Black Mirror; people who enjoyed the ‘Janets’ episode of The Good Place, or any discussion of what it means to be one’s self.

In a nutshell:
Lou was murdered by a serial killer. She is also alive, having been ‘brought back’ (cloned), with nearly all her memories restored. But something isn’t quite right …

Worth quoting:
“Everyone loves a dead woman as long as she’s the right kind of dead woman”

“We were hard on each other. We weren’t unkind, never unkind. We girls had been taught kindness from a young age; kindness had been stressed. But there was another lesson in that, one the adults hadn’t known they were teaching, how kindness could be expected of a girl, demanded of her really, and then levied against her. We girls didn’t talk about this, but we knew it was true — of course we knew it was true — and so we would dare each other to venture into the forbidden area past kindness, where, we hoped, toughness might exist.”

Why I chose it:
I was visiting the town I grew up in and went to a local independent bookstore. This was one of the staff recommendations.

Review:
Lou was killed by a serial killer when her newborn was just about six months old. She – along with the other four victims of the killer – were brought back by a special program that has learned how to bring people back from the dead via cloning and restoring all their memories save the few days prior to their deaths. This isn’t done for everyone, and it is controversial, but it is done in extraordinary circumstances.

Lou is struggling a bit. Her daughter Nova is not connecting with the ‘new’ Lou, and Lou was struggling before her murder, with some pretty serious post-partum depression. But now that she is returned, she is trying to make it work.

Part of this involves weekly group meetings with a representative from the organization that brought her back and the other four victims. Lou makes friends with one of them, which leads to the discovery that turns everything on its head.

Sharing anything beyond that will be way too much of a spoiler, but I will say this: holy shit. The book manages to be an interesting mystery, but also a contemplation about what the self means. It takes place in a vague Black Mirror episode – virtual reality plays a large role, and there are self-driving cars – but it doesn’t feel like a wholly different time and place. And the tech is more a background than the star.

I will be thinking about this book for awhile – about how the author managed to comment on society’s current interest in true crime, about how women in particular are treated as victims, about the expectations of motherhood. I might not have picked this one up without the recommendation from the bookstore, and I’m so glad I did.

I wavered back and forth between four and five stars for this one, but settled on five because the ending didn’t go on too long. That will make sense when you read it.

What’s next for this book:
Probably give it to my sister- or mother-in-law before we head back home as I think one of them will enjoy it.