Book Review: Severence by Ling Ma

This was a highly relevant book for me. Not because it is about a global pandemic – one that is admittedly much more terrifying that what we are going through – but because at its core it is about disillusionment. It is a poignant satire about inescapable corporate farce and the “millennial condition”, which in my experience is the struggle to find identity and meaning in a world where you are a commodity.

Candace’s experience at Spectra is eerily like mine: she moved to a new city based on its fictional merits, life swept her up and put her in a repetitive job she didn’t really care about, and she stayed, slowly trying to fill her wallet while her character drained out. When she tried to leave her job, citing “I just don’t want my life to narrow so quickly.” her boss said:

You’re maybe under the impression that everyone gets to do what they want for a living… If you’re lucky enough to find something you are good at, where people appreciate you, don’t thumb your nose at it

This is one of my biggest fears: that life will just keep acting upon me until I settle in something that doesn’t gel with my vision of myself, but is just comfortable enough to hold me down.

The one thing I didn’t like about this book were the frequent sections on Candace (or her parent’s) childhood. They were well written, interesting, and they gave a little bit of context/character to Candace, but they felt more like random little personal anecdotes for the author. Overall, they didn’t really contribute anything to what I would consider the central theme of the story (see 1st paragraph).

This was a weirdly personal review. I wasn’t expecting to empathize so much with this book. Even if you aren’t going through a personal crisis similar to mine, this book is worth a read just for how on-the-mark it was about the effects of a global pandemic in a corporate context