Setting the Scene: 🇺🇸 A cozy, slightly eerie college in a Massachusetts town in the chill of winter. 

POV: We follow our main character, a burgeoning theatre actress now heading up the college production of Shakespeare as an assistant professor and navigating academia. 

 

-Swipes of bizarro academia 

-Speculative and magical realism theatre production drama

-Wintery theatre and cozy pub vibes

-Themes and symbolism around pain, disability, chronic illness, recovery, redemption, beauty, adversity, ambition, and hypocrisy

 

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🐺 Growls, Howls, and Tail Wags 🐕

 

🗣️ Tale-Telling: The narration is present-tense third-person and what I’d call mind-bender style. I was pulled in to the characters’ world through every little task, pain, and thought. It led to a rollercoaster of empathy and frustration, understanding and annoyance with our main character and showed the complexities of pain and perception.  

 

👥 Characters: The characters were vibrant, multifaceted, yet constantly shifting as we learn more about them. Miranda, our MC, is dealing with an invisible chronic condition, but she was so much more than that. She had me both rooting for her recovery and success, while also making me feel second-hand embarrassment, annoyance, and even disgust. 

 

🗺️ Ambiance: The setting was crafted and captured the wintery aura. Each location, from office to stage to clinic to a pub, was rich with atmosphere and character. 

 

🔥 Fuel: The story revolved around pain – real and imagined. There were elements of wondering if what’s happening has a physical or cosmic origin. The mysteries build with magical realism and psychological drama, so understanding dawns slowly while questioning the nature of reality (in the story). 

 

🎬 Scenes: The pacing was slow, steady, and immersive. I think depending on your tastes for subtletly (read – ‘I have no clue what is going on’) and introspective narratives this could be a hit or a miss. The scenes oscillated between being deeply introspective and distantly observational. Often my perspective of Miranda and the other characters would change after a discussion or hearing Miranda’s motivations and thoughts. A lot of the scenes are directly or symbolically showing the harsh realities of academia, personal struggles and battles of wit and willpower. 

 

🤓 Random Thoughts: This wasn’t a typical mystery or thriller; it was an exploratory journey into empathy and the surreal. It involved dismissal of a woman’s pain by male clinicians, but gender wasn’t the focus. The focus is the difficulty communicating one’s inner condition, the dismissal itself and the broader commentary on perception, judgement, and disbelief of invisible ‘mystery’ pains and illnesses. I think it may resonate or be cathartic for anyone who has experienced ‘invisible’ conditions like chronic illness, pain, or mental illness. 

 

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Content Heads-Up: Medical (chronic pain, clinical disbelief, injury). Alcohol use (self-medicating, casual). Drug use (prescribed). Medical incompetence. 

Rep: Cisgender. Heterosexual. White Americans. 

 

👀 Format: Library Digital

 

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🌟💗 Potential Favourite of 2024