The Morningside: A Novel, Tea Obreht, author; Carlotta Brentan, narrator
This novel takes place sometime in the future. It is a world in disarray after war, class warfare, racial issues and weather have caused catastrophe. Floods have destroyed cities. Places are uninhabitable. In an effort to bring back these cities, a Restoration Project moves people to locations and provides homes for them. Everything is rationed because food is scarce as are many other necessary things. Material wealth is largely absent for most people. “Special” people still seem to live well, however.
Apparently, cities were emptied by the fighting and the malignant climate. Silvia and her mother left their home to try to start life again in one of the cities experimenting with the Restoration Project. In this new place, many of the residents do not eat meat because they are also made of flesh. Dwelling places are furnished with things found abandoned, often in need of repair. Most people follow the rules, and work to restore order and to preserve what they have and to restore some of what they have lost. Those that don’t follow the rules are often ridiculed and reported. There is always the fear of reprisals in the atmosphere.
There is very little news of actual progress, but there is an underground chain of information called “The Dispatch”. Who runs it? How long will it be allowed to exist? Does it keep people and life in check or does it create more problems with the spread of rumors? Do misperceptions cause problems? Do people rush to conclusions? Are people vindictive? Has the world moved on from the disorder of disagreement to peaceful and orderly confrontation? Is anyone trying to find out if progress is being made or if they are wasting their time?
Silvia and her mom now live in a place called Island City. Silvia’s Aunt Ena is the caretaker of a building called Morningside. They live in the same building. Aunt Ena is a teller of tall tales, and she fills Silvia’s head with stories. Silvia believes she has to protect her family, and she places amulets around the building. If they are placed incorrectly, she fears tragedy will befall them. Although Silvia’s mom forbids Ena from telling her stories, she tells her stories anyway. Some are legends, some conspiracy theories. Ena tells Silvia about a mythical creature called a Vila, and Silvia, just about 11 years old, has an active, precocious mind. She decides that one of the tenants in the building, a well-known artist, is exactly that, a Vila that possesses magical powers. She believes that the tenant turns men into her three dogs, and then back into men again, depending on whether it is day or night. Ena has enchanted her with tales of the supernatural. Aunt Ena promises to reveal the secret of this tenant to her when she is ready to hear it, but Aunt Ena dies suddenly and never does reveal anything to her. Silvia wants very much to prove that she is ready and can discover it for herself.
One day, Silvia meets a man who calls her Snoopy. He has been watching her and he asks her to do him a favor. Several years ago, he was a writer, but he crossed a line and thus, the wrong people. He was the janitor of The Morningside before Aunt Ena. When he was let go, he was unable to take anything with him and he asks Silvia to locate his mail from a dozen years ago and return it to him. When Silvia discovers he has a key to the elevator that takes the resident she believes is a Vila, up to her penthouse apartment, she wants to get the key. She makes a bargain with him and retrieves his mail in exchange for the elevator key.
Silvia has no friends in the building or the neighborhood. She is lonely and adrift. Although she is on a list to attend school, there is a long wait for an opening. The education system has broken down as well. Then one day, a new family moves in with a daughter her age. The system does not defy this young girl whose family apparently has influence, and she is admitted to school immediately. When they become friends, after a period of trial and error, these two young girls, not yet teenagers, but a bit too curious for their own good, plot to discover if the artist resident is indeed a Vila. There are moments of tragedy and mayhem. Silvia’s mom is trapped in an underwater salvage dive. Her friend suggests doing very dishonest and risky things. Suddenly there are accusations of terrible crimes. What happens to her friend? Silvia discovers who puts out The Dispatch and her mom makes horrifying accusations about a tenant? Are they well founded? Does tragedy ensue?
Years pass and Silvia relocates. The Dispatch author is revealed. Silvia’s mother becomes more open-minded and keeps fewer secrets. Does the book end hopefully or with feelings of impending doom? I am not sure I even understood the entire meaning of the novel. At times, I found it disjointed and very hard to follow. There were many quirky characters and sub-plots. The secrets and mysteries were subtly revealed but were not “aha” moments. In the end, the world seemed to revert back to a more natural state with people willing to do with less and to live within nature’s boundaries. It made me think of Henry David Thoreau who preferred living in, and with, nature as his guide. ( )

TW/CW: Scary situations, character death, language

RATING: 3.5/5

REVIEW: I received a free copy of this book from NetGalley and am voluntarily writing an honest review.

The Morningside is the story of refugees looking for home in a large tenement building after a massive war and climate crisis in what seems to be near future North America.

The main character, a little girl named Silvia, grows up in this building with her mother, and the book follows her from the time she’s ten years old until she becomes a grown woman.

While this book was no doubt well written, I can’t say that it really grabbed me. It felt like I kept waiting for something to happen, and when it finally did, it felt rushed and unsatisfying. Also, I thought the setting and the post-apocalyptic world was pretty under-utilized. When I finished this book, it felt strongly like I was missing something, but after a week thinking about it, I still can’t figure out what that was.

This is not a bad book, in fact it’s pretty interesting in places. But for me, it failed to deliver what it could have been. ( )

Series Info/Source: This is a stand alone book. I got an ebook for this from NetGalley to review..

Thoughts: This ended up being okay. The story starts very slow and feels very "day in the life". There is a bit of a plot and the pace does pick up more towards the end. I liked the strange post-apocalyptic setting but it also felt a bit unfinished and ultimately the story felt unsatisfying to me.

The story follows a young girl (and eventually young woman) named Silvia who lives with her mother in the strange high rise building called the Morningstar. Her mother is the superintendent at The Morningstar, a high-rise with wealthy tenants who are trying to relive their glory days while the rest of the world drowns under the rising waters of the Earth. Silivia is inspired by the fantastical stories her aunt, Ena, and starts to become obsessed with the mysterious woman who lives on the top floor of the building.

The story moved slowly and we wander from day to day with Silvia as she both takes on maintenance tasks in The Morningstar and plots to find out more about the top floor resident. No background is ever explained about the world and we are left to piece it together from what we see and hear from the characters. This left the world feeling kind of dreamy and thin.

The tone and pace of the story changes dramatically at the end when Silvia's mom recognizes a man who has recently moved into The Morningstar. At this point the story pivots away from the myserious woman on the top floor and things get more urgent...until then again they aren't. Our characters just move past those issues and wander away to live their lives. While realistic, I guess, it makes for a fairly unsatisfying read. It left me wondering what the point was.

The writing is easy to read and engaging. I struggled with the pacing and with picturing the world and caring about the characters. I did like the theme of a parent struggling to provide for their child in this post-apocalyptic world.

My Summary (3.5/5): Overall this was okay but forgettable. The world is vague and the characters aren't all that likable. There is a bit of a plot but it is left stranded mid-book while the story pivots to other issues. The story lacks urgency and ends up feeling unfinished and left me with a well...okay then...kind of vibe. I finished it and the world was tantalizing in the glimpses we got but I just felt a bit cheated that so little actually happened. ( )

The Morningside is an enigmatic and heterogeneous novel that is highly enjoyable. Set in the not-so-distant future, it is essentially the story of a young girl named Silvia. With a dystopian setting, it is a coming-of-age story of family, the aching need for one's history, and the desire to make sense of one's world. While melancholic, the story also contains elements of mysticism, magic, and adventure. Sil hears stories of her homeland, a place she has no memory of, from her aunt Ena, whom she has only recently met. She is enraptured with the folktales and accounts of the beauty of where she came from. Her dull existence is further piqued when she meets a mysterious man, and a girl her age moves into her building. These events and Sil's nosy curiosity about the woman who lives in the penthouse with her three mammoth dogs form the crux of the story. Téa Obreht has created a delightfully imaginative novel that I found entertaining.
Thank you to NetGalley and Random House for the ARC of this book. ( )

After a disappointing sophomore effort, Tea Obreht returns to a somewhat mystical story with The Morningside. Refugees in a world fraught with floods and fires, Silvia and her mother arrive at The Morningside as part of the Repopulation Program to bring people back to the drowning cities. They move in with Silvia’s aunt Ena, who tells her tales of the past where the truth and myth are difficult to separate. When Sil begins investigating a mysterious woman in the building, she begins a chain of events that will impact everyone around her. Obreht’s style manages to capture that fable-like atmosphere that makes you question what is real, and she paints a strange dystopian world in The Morningside. I didn’t love this book — I could have used more character development — but I did like it, and I think many readers will enjoy this novel about mothers and daughters, belonging, and displacement. ( )