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The Migration
The Migration | Helen Marshall
9 posts | 6 read | 8 to read
"A dark fable that somehow feels both timeless and urgently topical. The Migration is heart-wringing and powerful, but over and above that, it's just vivid and immersive and enthralling throughout." --M.R. Carey, author of The Girl with All the Gifts When I was younger I didn't know a thing about death. I thought it meant stillness, a body gone limp. A marionette with its strings cut. Death was like a long vacation--a going away. Not this. Storms and flooding are worsening around the world, and a mysterious immune disorder has begun to afflict the young. Sophie Perella is about to begin her senior year of high school in Toronto when her little sister, Kira, is diagnosed. Their parents' marriage falters under the strain, and Sophie's mother takes the girls to Oxford, England, to live with their Aunt Irene. An Oxford University professor and historical epidemiologist obsessed with relics of the Black Death, Irene works with a Centre that specializes in treating people with the illness. She is a friend to Sophie, and offers a window into a strange and ancient history of human plague and recovery. Sophie just wants to understand what's happening now; but as mortality rates climb, and reports emerge of bodily tremors in the deceased, it becomes clear there is nothing normal about this condition--and that the dead aren't staying dead. When Kira succumbs, Sophie faces an unimaginable choice: let go of the sister she knows, or take action to embrace something terrifying and new. Tender and chilling, unsettling and hopeful, The Migration is a story of a young woman's dawning awareness of mortality and the power of the human heart to thrive in cataclysmic circumstances.
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review
imyril
The Migration | Helen Marshall
Mehso-so

This is one of those books where mileage will vary. I loved the narrative voice, the focus on family and themes of grief and change; it was haunting. I was bothered - a lot - by reading about both a pandemic and a UK struggling to deal with climate change disaster (too many anxiety points). I was irritated, ultimately, by some slapdash world-building elements and a romance subplot. Ultimately unsatisfying, but beautifully executed.

review
CaitlinR
The Migration | Helen Marshall
post image
Pickpick

This started slowly for me, but I‘m glad I didn‘t give up.

It‘s the “beginning of the end.” The climate is changing, there are storms and floods, and young people are getting sick with JI2. Some are dying ... or are they ... and has this all happened earlier in history?

No, the novel isn‘t about zombies (thank heavens) but Marshall creates a new vision, a becoming. Well worth reading to find what it will happen