** Down, out, and liberal in the 2010s **
I didn’t know it was possible to write a period piece about the last decade, but here we are.
I’m still not sure what really compelled me, but I couldn’t put it book down. On this flight I forgot I was even in the air, where I’m coming from or going to, what year I’m in, I was just living inside the story. Maybe it’s because the story gradually felt familiar. Raising kids, even if you’re not climbing the same kind of corporate ladder as the characters, hits familiar notes. It’s grimdark, yet full of both overt and subtle moralizing, and every chapter ends with a life lesson like Grey’s Anatomy in space.
Maybe the real reason it works is simple: the plot moves. Characters appear, they’re compelling, and then something happens that changes the course of the plot, permanently and meaningfully. The story doesn’t sit still.
I’m glad it’s over—or at least that there aren’t more issues published for now. I’ve got a job, a family, and a life to return to.