The Future for Curious People by Gregory Sherl
My rating: 4/5 cats
I look up at the sky, growing dark. The snow is light and dizzying—and new. That’s the thing about snow. It’s all about promise. It’s nature’s do-over.
Suddenly Adrian is standing right in front of me. He looks a little teary. Maybe it’s just the cold wind. He’s so close I feel his warm breath; this is possibly the most exercise he’s gotten in weeks. I imagine his ribs, rising and falling, after sex. I’ll miss his hands on me and the way he says I’m the best goddamn librarian in the world, even though he’s never understood what I do at the library exactly. There’s something sweet about how he loves me without knowing me—a blind love, which is almost like an unconditional love but not quite.
evelyn is breaking up with her boyfriend adrian—in the snow, on the street, while he is passing out fliers for his band, the babymakers.
she is breaking up with him because she has been to see the envisionist—you know, those places where a doctor feeds you a pill, puts a helmet on you, inserts some coins, and the romantic future between you and a partner of your choice plays before you on a screen. like science.
she saw herself and adrian singing happy birthday to a chihuahua and arguing about cheese, and said “no, thanks.”
what follows is a romantic-comedy-style book where a couple of people look into the future to see where they would be with various, frequently unsuitable, partners while dealing with the baggage of the other parts of their lives.
this is definitely not my usual kind of book, but i thought it was so utterly charming. you have to suspend your disbelief in terms of the “science” of it all, but if you accept the rules of this world, it’s an enjoyable ride; an offbeat romance just on the good side of frothy.
he manages to capture some of the difficult-to-articulate bits of love and attraction and chemistry in a fresh and fun way, and it’s delightful and engaging, if not the kind of book that’s going to change your life or challenge your intellect.
there are some chuckles for librarians:
“You’re also afraid of things that are out of your control,” he says. “That’s why you like to spend all day shelving books in alphabetical order.”
“You have no idea what a librarian actually does,” I tell him.
We’ve been over this.
but as a librarian (in the sense of someone who has earned the degree through education, without ever being employed as a librarian, but who is still allowed to call herself a librarian, the way a doctor who has been prevented from practicing medicine because of diabolical and inhumane acts is still a doctor by virtue of having the degree) i am appalled by what evelyn does with the books for the blind.
that is all i will say about that.
but it’s a cute book, a vacation read, and perfection is overrated anyway.
Sometimes you just have to commit to something that’s not perfect. And you have to commit to the whole future of it. And that can’t be known and it can’t be controlled.
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