Review for How High We Go In The Dark by Sequoia Nagamatsu
I wasn’t sure what I was getting into when I started reading How High We Go In The Dark, by Sequoia Nagamatsu, and I’m still not positive I can define it in a couple of paragraphs after reading it. The novel reads like a collection of short stories that are all tied around a pandemic causing deaths around the globe. Each character in the story is unique, yet bonded together through shared loss, or hope of finding a cure and a way through the disease. Be forewarned: this novel is a very heavy read at times, as Nagamatsu touches on so many topics close to many hearts. Love, loss, grief, inadequacy, disappointment, and hope weave in and through each character’s story as they each navigate their own situation.
The characters in this novel are wonderfully complex and believable. The pacing of the stories gives us everything we need to feel the story without clogging up and getting stale. As I read through each chapter, I wished for more time with each of the characters, sometimes wanting to know what life was like for them in the past, and sometimes wanting to know how things panned out for them in the future. The events in the book seemed like half science fiction and half horror, but the excellent writing made it all completely believable. I really enjoyed this novel, not because it felt like it was written in a particular genre, but because it didn’t. I didn’t feel like any element of the story was too strong, or that there was anything missing. This book is a gem of excellent writing that tells so many very compelling stories.
-The Inside Story