Severance is back! We’re so excited, and so … nervous. If you’re the kind of person who can’t get enough of that mysterious, unsettled feeling that you’re left with after each episode ends, try one of these books.
Severance by Ling Ma
Candace Chen, a millennial drone self-sequestered in a Manhattan office tower, is devoted to routine. So she barely notices when a plague of biblical proportions sweeps New York. Then Shen Fever spreads. Families flee. Companies cease operations. Soon entirely alone, still unfevered, she photographs the eerie, abandoned city. Candace won’t be able to make it on her own forever, though. Enter a group of survivors, led by the power-hungry IT tech Bob. They’re traveling to a place called the Facility, where, Bob promises, they will have everything they need to start society anew. But Candace is carrying a secret she knows Bob will exploit.
The Memory Police by Yoko Ogawa
On an unnamed island, objects are disappearing: first hats, then ribbons, birds, roses. Most of the inhabitants are oblivious to these changes, while those few able to recall the lost objects live in fear of the draconian Memory Police, who are committed to ensuring that what has disappeared remains forgotten. When a young writer discovers that her editor is in danger, she concocts a plan to hide him beneath her floorboards, and together they cling to her writing as the last way of preserving the past.
Piranesi by Susanna Clarke
Piranesi’s house is no ordinary building: its rooms are infinite, its corridors endless, its walls are lined with thousands upon thousands of statues. Within the labyrinth of halls an ocean is imprisoned. But Piranesi is not afraid; he understands the tides as he understands the labyrinth itself. There is one other person in the house-a man called The Other, who visits Piranesi twice a week and asks for help with research into A Great and Secret Knowledge. But as Piranesi explores, evidence emerges of another person, and a terrible truth begins to unravel.
Tell Me an Ending by Jo Harkin
Across the world, thousands of people are shocked by a notification that they once chose to have a memory removed. Now they are being given an opportunity to get that memory back. Four individuals are filled with new doubts, grappling with the unexpected question of whether to remember unknown events, or to leave them buried forever. Noor, a psychologist working at the Nepenthe memory removal clinic in London, is shaken as she begins the process of reinstating patients’ memories. As she delves deeper into how the program works, she will have to risk everything to uncover the cost of this miraculous technology.
Lakewood by Megan Giddings
When Lena’s beloved grandmother dies, the full extent of the family debt is revealed, so the Black millennial drops out of college to support her family. On paper, her new job is too good to be true. High paying. No out of pocket medical expenses. A free place to live. All Lena has to do is participate in a secret program — and lie to her friends and family about the research being done. An eye drop that makes brown eyes blue, a medication that could be a cure for dementia, golden pills promised to make all bad thoughts go away. The discoveries made in Lakewood, Lena is told, will change the world — but the consequences for the subjects involved could be devastating.
The Circle by Dave Eggers
When Mae Holland is hired to work for the Circle, she feels she’s been given the opportunity of a lifetime. The Circle links users’ personal emails, social media, banking, and purchasing with their universal operating system, resulting in one online identity and a new age of civility and transparency. Mae is thrilled with the company’s modernity and activity and can’t believe her luck to work for the most influential company in the world — even as life beyond the campus grows distant, even as a strange encounter with a colleague leaves her shaken, and role at the Circle becomes increasingly public.
Dark Matter by Blake Crouch
“Are you happy with your life?” Those are the last words Jason Dessen hears before the kidnapper knocks him unconscious. Before he awakens to find himself strapped to a gurney, surrounded by strangers in hazmat suits. In this world he’s woken up to, Jason’s life is not the one he knows. His wife is not his wife. His son was never born. And Jason is not an ordinary college professor but a celebrated genius who has achieved something remarkable. Is it this life or the other that’s the dream? And even if the home he remembers is real, how will Jason make it back to the family he loves?
Finna by Nino Cipri
When an elderly customer at a furniture store slips through a portal to another dimension, it’s up to two minimum-wage employees to track her across the multiverse and protect their company’s bottom line. To find the missing granny, Ava and Jules (who broke up a week ago) will brave carnivorous furniture, swarms of identical furniture spokespeople, and the deep resentment simmering between them.
Several People Are Typing by Calvin Kasulke
Gerald’s consciousness has been uploaded into his company’s internal Slack channels. His colleagues assume it’s an elaborate gag to exploit the new work-from-home policy. But
faced with the looming abyss of a disembodied life online, Gerald enlists his co-worker Pradeep to help him escape, and to find out what happened to his body. Meanwhile, Gerald’s colleagues have PR catastrophes of their own to handle in the real world. And the longer Gerald stays in the void, the more alluring and absurd his reality becomes.
All Her Little Secrets by Wanda M. Morris
Ellice Littlejohn has a well-paying job as a corporate attorney in midtown Atlanta and a “for fun” relationship with a rich, charming executive, who just happens to be her white boss. And then Ellice finds him dead with a gunshot to his head and walks away like nothing has happened. Why? Ellice has been keeping a cache of dark secrets, including a small-town past and a kid brother who’s spent time on the other side of the law. But when she uncovers shady dealings inside the company, Ellice is trapped in an impossible ethical and moral dilemma.
Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro
As children, Kathy, Ruth, and Tommy were students at an exclusive boarding school in the English countryside, where teachers were constantly reminding their charges of how special they were. Years later, Ruth and Tommy have reentered Kathy’s life. And for the first time she is beginning to look back at their shared past and understand just what it is that makes them special — and how that gift will shape the rest of their time together.
Then We Came to the End by Joshua Ferris
No one knows us in quite the same way as the men and women who sit beside us in department meetings and crowd the office refrigerator with their labeled yogurts. This Chicago ad agency is coping with a business downturn in the time-honored way: through gossip, elaborate pranks, and increasingly frequent coffee breaks.
Featured Image by Apple TV
Ellen Whitfield is senior publicist at Books Forward, an author publicity and book marketing firm committed to promoting voices from a diverse variety of communities. From book reviews and author events, to social media and digital marketing, we help authors find success and connect with readers.
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