Finished on 9.7.25

I had heard a lot about this book, and I definitely understand the hype! It’s such an interesting take on a Groundhog Day scenario—it’s quiet, small, personal, and reflective. I have to admit that sometimes I would get frustrated with the narrator’s lack of attempts to get out of the loop, but then I would realize that I was missing the point, as the book is much more of a mediation on time than a solution-oriented sci-fi. I’ve read the second book already (post to come) but there are five more to go! Dying to get the rest!!

Click here to buy this book on Bookshop.org

My favorite quotes:

“Once or twice during our conversation I complained about the still painful burn on my hand and we had a little laugh at my thoughtlessness: it wasn’t the first time I had come to grief for not heeding, as Thomas put it, the basic principles of cause and effect.”

“Often, we would simply come to the conclusion that you cannot know everything, that you have to accept some displacement in life, that you have to expect inconsistencies, and that was what we encountered: patterns and inconsistencies, two worlds trying to merge.”

“We fried eggs in the kitchen and picked orange-flavored chocolate off a shelf in the supermarket and things disappeared and I am a pest, a monster that devours my world. I pick vegetables in the garden and the garden disappears. I chew and chew. There is munching and crunching and foaming at the mouth. Drool running from the corners of my mouth. Down my chin. The garbage piles up. Shelves grow barer and barer. The monster lurches on, day after day.”