Publishing date: 29.04.2025 (DD/MM/YYYY) 

Thank you to NetGalley and Pushkin Press for the ARC. My opinions are my own. 

TLDR: Man is very obsessed with a woman, hallucinates every other page

My summary is up to interpretation, you might see it differently. 

Man wades through a post-apocalyptic urban reality where snow and ice has taken over the entire world. Infrastructure seems to collapse (except for the rich and powerful). While managing this he is also obsessively searching for a woman he once knew. He starts hallucinating her and himself in all kinds of different situations, but never seems to actually get close to her in reality. 

I found reading this story very tough. Knowing what was real and what wasn't was very tough. Knowing when and where was nearly impossible. This made my reading experience a little skewed towards the negative sadly. 

Both pacing and characters struggled with the same things, knowing who you read about was a little hard. 

I did like the atmosphere, it felt cold and unforgiving. In my head I was imagining trudging through snow and ice and feeling hopeless. Gave a real sense of both danger and hope. What I didn't like was the image of the woman. She was fragile, and small, and made of glass, and such a victim, and it got repetitive. Every time she was mentioned, the sandwich list was pulled up of all her attributes. The purpose of this I do not know, but it did annoy me. 

This was originally published in 1967, but I think the audience is the same. Adults, all the way. This is an adult read, both in terms of difficulty and themes. Adults that enjoy dystopian and surrealism might highly enjoy this. 

I am giving this book 3 stars. Interesting premise, but very hard to process and actually get into. It is a quick and short read, so consider picking up if you feel like working out your brain a little.