Breakaway Books

Authored by Julia Phillips; Published May 2019; Fiction

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ / 🏖️🏖️

At this point in my life, I have been forced to accept that reading non fiction is bot my favorites way to spend time. I try to focus on the facts, but somewhere between the paragraphs, my mind wanders off into another universe. I bring this up because novels like Disappearing Earth are probably the best way for me to learn about another part of the world.

Disappearing Earth is set in a part of Russia that most of us will probably never visit. It’s a place with a small enough community that one event, the disappearance of two children, sends ripples far and wide, touching men and women of all ages and statuses. I loved the way this novel centered on the community’s women and what it was really like to survive or even thrive in today’s world.

But, that does make it just about the opposite of an escapist novel. From the opening chapters, when a middle school age girl is faced with the misfortune of being dumped by her best friend, to a divorced woman who is brought to pieces by the loss of her loved dog, Disappearing Earth starkly realistic about the ordinary and extraordinary pains that we encounter in our lives.

The centerpiece of the novel is the disappearance of the children, but this is not a crime solving novel, closely following a detective who tracks down every lead. Every chapter is a different vignette, a slice of a person’s life without a satisfying conclusion, which frustrated me at times, as a person who longs for a happy ending. There were few to be found here.

Yet, Disappearing Earth was a simple and beautiful rendering of life in a world so different from mine. I loved getting to connect to the similarities and learn about the differences.