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"The prize-winning, bestselling author of Gingerbread; Boy, Snow, Bird; and What is Not Yours is Not Yours returns with a vivid and inventive new novel about a couple forever changed by an unusual train voyage. When Otto and Xavier Shin declare their love, an aunt gifts them a trip on a sleeper train to mark their new commitment - and to get them out of her house. Setting off with their pet mongoose, Otto and Xavier arrive at their sleepy local train station, but quickly deduce that The Lucky Day is no ordinary locomotive. Their trip on this former tea-smuggling train has been curated beyond their wildest imaginations, complete with mysterious and welcoming touches, like ingredients for their favorite breakfast. They seem to be the only people onboard, until Otto discovers a secretive woman who issues a surprising message. As further clues and questions pile up, and the trip upends everything they thought they knew, Otto and Xavier begin to see connections to their own pasts, connections that now bind them together. A spellbinding tale from a star author, Peaces is about what it means to be seen by another person--whether it's your lover or a stranger on a train--and what happens when things you thought were firmly in the past turn out to be right beside you"--… (more)
User reviews
This is a book I struggled to read. Oyeyemi is a talented author and the novel was beautifully written, but there wasn't anything for me to hold on to. When anything can happen at any moment, there's no way to surprise the reader, at least this reader. And without any sort of narrative tension, I was left with a series of lovely vignettes, none of which I felt invested in. More sophisticated readers and those who don't need their fantasy grounded in some sort of ground rules will like this novel a lot more than I did.
This book reads like a fable. It contains many outlandish elements and gets increasingly bizarre. I enjoyed the setup and early chapters. As I read it, I felt a rhythmic quality in the language. Oyeyemi writes beautiful sentences. I just wish they had been woven into a more cohesive story. If it had stayed as playful as it started, I probably would have loved it, but it gets darker and more fragmented as it goes along. I struggled with this one, mostly due to my preference for more straight-forward storytelling.