Books & Boba discussion

Happy early holidays! For December, we will be reading Charles Yu's witty, time-travel novel How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe . If you're a fan of Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, then chances are you'll enjoy this book.

As always, we encourage members to discuss the monthly pick in the forums. We collect discussion topics from our readers before every podcast recording, so feel free to send us your thoughts on Yu's novel via Goodreads, Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram. You might even hear your name and comment on air!

I finished reading the novel earlier today. When I saw it listed as this month's book, I admit to being hesitant, knowing the number of mixed reviews it has gotten. But the synopsis did intrigue me, so I was more than willing to give it a shot.

I can now understand why it has gotten quite a number of mixed reviews, for I gave it three out of five stars. It's interesting at some parts, but the rest was just plain noise. Too many inner monologues going on, too many run-on sentences, and I feel that the story didn't really take off until (view spoiler)[Charles entered the time loop. (hide spoiler)]

I really wanted to like this novel, given its unique nature and focus. But the quantity of expressions of thoughts was overwhelming and rather than complementing the story, it instead hindered away from it altogether.

I'm still halfway into the novel, and I will admit that I'm having a hard time getting through it. Metafiction is definitely not my genre. I prefer novels that are more plot-driven with visual prose. I also agree with Lauren on how the book can get too overwhelming with the inner monologues.

With that said, I can see why so many critics have praised Charles Yu's writing. There are some passages in the book that are poignant and candid about how broken we are as human beings. How hard it is to live with our regrets and failures as well as being trapped in our own self-doubts. The following is one of my favorite passages:

“Time is a machine: it will convert your pain into experience. Raw data will be compiled, will be translated into a more comprehensible language. The individual events of your life will be transmuted into another substance called memory and in the mechanism something will be lost and you will never be able to reverse it, you will never again have the original moment back in its uncategorized, preprocessed state. It will force you to move on and you will not have a choice in the matter.”

At this point, I know I'm not a big fan of How I Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe, but that's ok! I can still appreciate the author's creativity and unique characters without personally liking the story.

I agree that despite the flaws, there are some passages in the novel that really tug at both the heart strings and the mind. In fact, I even had to stop and every now and then and document ones that caught my attention into my quote book.