3. The Book of Form and Emptiness

This was a really interesting, depressing, dark book about grief, addiction, mental illness, and survival.  The structure is really clever, with one of the narrators being a book/the book itself and this falls into the category of books with an unreliable narrator.  The twists and mystery of the book kept me engaged in the story, even while the compounding pain of the character's lives was not enticing.  It wasn't like I really loved the characters and continued reading because I was invested in their story or development.  It was more that the plot was fascinating and I was curious where it would take us next.  

One of the things I kept thinking about was how so many families who aren't "making it" could or would be fine but for the compounding of issues.  And by "making it," I mean able to have a good life with some significant happiness and meaning in it.  In this case, the family might have been able to weather a few of the external things that happened if it wasn't that all of these things -- things that realistically can and do happen in families -- happened in close succession.  

The way that the novel unfolds with these unreliable narrators so it isn't entirely clear initially what is real and what is a product of the son's schizoaffective disorder or whether the mother is an actual hoarding or if the landlord is wanting to find an excuse to evict them.  The father's relationship with drugs and his death are similarly clocked in uncertainty as the story unfolds.

Despite how smart this book is, I don't have it on the recommend list because it really is deeply depressing, but also because I found that several passages were felt like preachy social commentary that didn't advance the story.  One example has to do with the library.  The library is a centerpiece of the story and a pretty obvious metaphor.  I think it is common knowledge at this point that libraries have become a de facto mental health care provider in the absence of adequate mental health services and the decline in the relevance of paper books to communities and individual's lives.  But this book really does not let up on this issue and I found it such a distraction.  Those passages that directly address this issue (and quite a few others) could have been eliminated entirely and left the reader to observe this in the story directly instead of being told about it explicitly.  I can see how other readers might be able to get past this part and I might have to if it hadn't been paired with the overall cloud of pain that the book left me with.

​Not not recommended.

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