It’s strange how CBR makes you realize the thematic similarities between the books you read. This easily could have come from one of the other books I’ve reviewed this year about loss:
“No one tells you it’s all about to change, to be taken away. There’s no proximity alert, no indication that you’re standing on the precipice. And maybe that’s what makes tragedy so tragic. Not just what happens, but how it happens: a sucker punch that comes at you out of nowhere, when you’re least expecting it. No time to flinch or brace.”
I was so very happy that my office book club suggested this book because I want everyone to read it. If I were wealthy, I’d attach a copy to my business cards. It’s one of my favorites, and moreover, Crouch is not a one trick pony because damn if Recursion isn’t just as good.
It’s fitting that this is a reread for me, as after all, the whole book is about the road not taken, and how our selves are molded by our choices as much as the other way around.
I know I’m cheating by inflating the word count with quotes, but Crouch is a better writer than I am and I want as many people as possible to read him. Reading about Harris Wittels’ death in Everything is Beautiful and Terrible and Nora McInerney’s loss of her first husband, you want to take all the hurt away, and Crouch elegantly rips off the band-aid that you can’t here.
“He says, “Every moment, every breath, contains a choice. But life is imperfect. We make the wrong choices. So we end up living in a state of perpetual regret, and is there anything worse? I built something that could actually eradicate regret. Let you find worlds where you made the right choice.” Daniela says, “Life doesn’t work that way. You live with your choices and learn. You don’t cheat the system.”
Buy the book. Read it a dozen times.
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