The 8th book I read in 2024 was ‘The Morningside’ by Tea Obreht. The Morningside is the story of our uncertain, rapidly changing times in the West and how parents are wary of a future for their kids that may be worse than theirs.

The novel has a decidedly Young Adult fiction feel to it. It doesn’t quite work because there are a lot of subplots and most of them are not all that interesting. The pace is slow and, while not boring, not entirely entertaining either.

In her third novel, Tea Obreht, tells the story of a mother and daughter’s complicated relationship. The story is based in a near-distant future in a post-climatic catastrophe. The mother and daughter move into a high-rise called Morningside in a fictitious place called Island City. They are relocated here as a part of a repopulation program from an unknown place that has apparently become uninhabitable. The building is full of quirky characters that seem to exist in a surreal world. The interaction between the tenets of the building leads to some implausible but amusing plot turns.

Tea is most famous for her debut novel, the brilliant Tiger’s Wife published in 2011. The follow-up, strange, haunting Inland got much less love and I am not sure if The Morningside will get much more. However, it is interesting to see an author’s journey across three novels that are most notable for being strikingly different from each other and that is not a small feat.

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