2023-01-02 - L'Anomalie

The Prix Goncourt is the most widely known literature award in France that is delivered every year, and getting one means that it will sell incredibly well. Is it always deserved? That's arguable. Yet, it means that the award winner book must show some interesting qualities.

For this one, I would say that it's the originality of the plot. I'm not going to spoil it here, because I feel like without it, the book loses a lot of interest. Let's just say that something extraordinary happens to the passengers of a Paris-NYC flight (think Netflix show Manifest extraordinary).

I really enjoyed the first part of the book. I thought it was a great idea, that leads to a lot of opportunities for plot development. Yet, what's been done with it was not that great. Oh it's not bad, it explores some human conflicts (suicide, incest, life goals, etc.) by laying out alternate realities. But when you got a great concept of science fiction like this one? It's not really what I expected. It's not exactly moving, either.

So I more or less finished the book, grumbling that it was a waste. It's not a book that I would NOT recommend if you were looking for a good story that reads quickly, but it's also not my 2022 award-winning book.

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