#currently-reading

i went to look up reviews, and not surprisingly, this book was very well reviewed critically, but has a lower than average 4-star goodreads rating because no one can quite figure out what these stories are. it seems to be a chronic issue for her, from this article:

Sulisław moved into the abandoned house on the first day of October, completely alone. He brought in water from the neighbor's house in a pail and then tried, heroically, to heat the place, despite the damp, the fungus and the decay. The structure's quirky heating system was once probably novel, almost like central heating. The stove warmed the water system and then some kind of electric pump was supposed to move the hot water through the radiators, but there was no electricity. So after hours of heating one corner of the radiator was tepidly warm to the touch but the warmth receded after the second and third rib. […] In the end Sulisław set himself up in the room in the corner with the yellow curtain scrap. There was also a yellowish wallpaper, and the low autumn sun shined in slices from the window, turning the dismal room into a blessed little golden nook.

the best thing i can say about it is that the worldbuilding and the characters are cool and some scenes felt similar to a shivers check, the same vivid feel in the places that were being described. and it adds a lot of cool pale lore as well as some interesting disappearance-related concepts that hint at even more mysteries behind how the pale actually works. depending on your perspective, this will either be a juicy place to form your own theories, or frustrating because these mysteries are dangled out and never fully resolved.