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Three Years with the Rat
Three Years with the Rat | Jay Hosking
12 posts | 9 read | 10 to read
After drifting between school and dead-end jobs, a young man makes the decision to return to the city he left after high school. The magnet is his beloved older sister, Grace: the golden girl, smart and charismatic even when rebelling, and always his hero. Now she is a promising graduate student in science and the center of a group of friends that take “Little Brother” into their fold, where he finds camaraderie, romance, and even a decent job. But it soon becomes clear that all is not well with Grace. She veers into sudden rages, often directed at her seemingly adoring boyfriend, John, who is engaged in the same field of research. Her accusations of betrayal are cryptic, and her brother is especially confused and troubled when she turns on him, accusing him of a fatal disloyalty. A visit to their mother triggers an episode that suggests Grace has tumbled into serious mental illness—except that John seems to know more than he is telling, and some supposedly objective certainties about what is real seem to be starting to fracture. When Grace disappears, the narrator embarks on a mission to discover the truth, a quest that brings him up against an astonishing question: if the universe is infinite, could there be infinite variations of ourselves, past, present, and future, in a dimension only a few can even imagine? And if there are, and we could enter that dimension, what might confront us? And could we ever make it back?
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review
khooliha
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Pickpick

Oh, grieving wrapped up in a scientific metaphor? A tale about the inevitability of failure? Sibling tragedy to beat the band?! This is definitely not the sort of book I needed right this second, but I found it very compelling despite all that.

khooliha I did give this book a hug when I was done cause I thought it could use one. 4y
2 likes1 comment
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khooliha

I have less than 50 pages left, but I am going to have to weave in something lighter on my kindle because there is so much Sibling Grief in this book.

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khooliha
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Getting some work done at my new place, didn't realize this book had so much Moving Content. (Time will tell whether it lives up to my Night Worms bookmark that I love so much.)

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khooliha
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Time shennanigans? Confined spaces? Of course, three years isn't that much compared to poor Miles' 25. Hard Time is a rough, sad watch and if DS9 were on today they would hopefully deal with Miles' many, MANY traumas.
(Also, I play Star Trek Timelines and I think the teeny tiny modifier on Prisoner O'Brien's diplomatic stat is one of the game's grimmest little nods to the show.)
#startreksummerjune

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The.Intentional.Reader
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I‘ve read this twice now and it gets better each time. What is in the other side of reality? Is time subjective or objective? Really good and I can‘t recommend it enough

13 likes1 stack add
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Taylor
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Mehso-so

There are a couple cool ideas here, but overall it‘s a letdown. I‘m giving it a so-so because it did make me think about some interesting stuff.

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mauveandrosysky
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Mehso-so

There's the shell of something good here. Hoskings' ideas are interesting and intellectually stimulating in that speculative fiction mindfuck kind of way, but they're just not fully developed enough to be satisfying. I get what he was going for with this. I appreciate it for its melancholy, for its meditations on solipsism. The execution just didn't do justice to the concept.

Taylor Ha I already am pretty sure I'll like this just based on the cover and that you don't connect with it. 6y
mauveandrosysky @Taylor haha, maybe so! It just felt very amateurish to me. Curious to hear if you like it though. 6y
Taylor @mauveandrosysky With "The Idiot," didn't you bail on that one? 6y
mauveandrosysky @Taylor no I finished it and wished I hadn't 6y
Taylor @mauveandrosysky Ha. I gave it a "so-so." 6y
31 likes1 stack add5 comments
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The.Intentional.Reader
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Pickpick

Everyone, this was such a good book! I love the writing style of Jay Hosking. This book really explores the length and breadth of what family is. Oh, and it also takes you to a mysterious other worldly place occupied by some freaky creatures that can only be accessed by crawling inside a big box of mirrors. (Yep, strange) Hosking writes a great book that will stretch you mentally and emotionally. Will definitely recommend this one in the future.

9 likes2 stack adds
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The.Intentional.Reader
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Started this one today. Sounds interesting and weird all at the same time

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andytbarnes
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When Blake Crouch calls your work "mind-warping" you are probably doing something right. A neuroscience P.h.D (this really pays off with his attention to detail and love of lab rats), Jay Hosking's fiction debut finds a college drop out, his scientist sister, and their doomed romantic partners, in an increasingly complex Toronto. For fans of: "hey wait what?" Sibling strife, and tenacious, unnamed , largely incompetent protagonists.

38 likes3 stack adds
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Asktheletters
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Pickpick

A non-linear, time-looping psychological spec-fic mystery (tinged with horror) that I thoroughly enjoyed.

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Asktheletters
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Because I'm in the mood for something that boggles the mind.