“The shift in climate that we’d ignored for so long, that we’d only given lip service to preventing…when it came it took so many of us with it, took us with floods and droughts. That was a small thing, really, and we were practiced at looking away, so long as it only happened to other people, in other places. But when it started taking what lived with us-the birds and the beasts and creatures that we loved, the green world that grew up around us, well. That was a loss we hadn’t prepared for, for...

The idea of "Grief" as a psychological state that mixes grief and guilt about the loss of a species and ends in suicide is absolutely brilliant, especially in 2021. Generally, there were a lot of themes in this short novella that tied in so well with the overall topic of extinction, such as fairy tales and divorce. I was also impressed by the inclusion of the discussion of (Western) people being sadder about losing animal species than indigenous nations as a result of the climate crisis. The Aus...

I'm coming to realize that I adore Cade's writing. It is so beautiful and immersive and filled with science as well as emotion. I loved how this story explored the grief of humanity over the destruction of nature in a science fiction setting. It got a little bit literary, especially at the end, and totally went over my head, but I still really enjoyed the experience.Content Warnings:self-harm, suicide, intense grief, mental instability, animal death

Twisty little tale of grief and “The Grief” from our coming mass extinction. I think it seems to convert the reader like the main character is (pretty sure)Maybe can make readers catch it’s fictional mental illness

2.5 "embryonic, unfinished, tantalizing" stars !! Thank you to Netgalley, the author and Steliform Press for an e-copy of this novella. This work will be released May 2021. I am providing my honest review. Thank you to Marchpane whose review prompted my interest in reading this book. This book is unfinished. The novella form is not well suited to this work. In this work lie so many interesting ideas about animal and plant extinction, environmentalism, art, love, friendship and ecology. The ideas...

Today, 5/20 @ 8pm EDT, Stelliform Press celebrates this #BookBirthday! And you can get tickets: https://tinyurl.com/5p689rhkI RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA NETGALLEY. THANK YOU.My Review: Here's how we start this tale:The Sea Witch lived in an abandoned salt water pool. I knew her when she was called Marjorie and had the office next to mine at the University, but when the Grief came on her she stopped coming into work and set herself up at the derelict public pool with a stack of useless...

The Impossible Resurrection of Grief is a slim speculative fiction novella that takes the real phenomenon of eco-grief and amplifies it into a dementing contagion known as ‘The Grief’. Sufferers are afflicted with unbearable feelings of loss, guilt, and complicity, brought on by species extinction.The Grief manifests in different ways: for most, it leads to bizarre behaviour and ultimately, suicide. A few are driven to try to recover the losses, either through de-extinction efforts (aka the

I was initially drawn to this book by the striking cover. Like many people I have a fascination for thylacines, the last known member of the species died in captivity in 1935. The black and white footage of this animal pacing around its enclosure is compelling and often when there’s talk of cloning extinct species, the thylacine is mentioned.This brilliant novella is set in the nearish future. I was drawn into the story immediately and couldn’t it put it down, in fact It could’ve been longer for...

The Impossible Resurrection of Grief is a troubling novella, in which New Zealand scientist-author Octavia Cade explores the moral considerations surrounding and human emotional implications of species extinction.In a not-too-distant climate ravaged future, research scientist Ruby specialises in the study of jellyfish species. She's fortunate, in that the species for which she feels both a personal and professional fascination are able to adapt to warming waters and other environmental effects c...

A beautiful, haunting novella about climate change, the terrain of physical - and other kinds - of loss, and the nameless melancholy (or the "twilight" of the soul that Amjad Nasser wrote about) that comes with losing something without quite knowing what it is that you've lost. As an added bonus, you'll learn a lot about jellyfish.

The Impossible Ressurection of Grief is set in a world where widespread extinction and the impacts of climate change are strongly felt. A disease called grief has arisen from these events, always leading in the person's death. It was beautifully written, uncanny, and even fairytale-inspired in parts. I'd definitely recommend this to people who love strange, thoughtful short stories. My one complaint is it felt slightly odd in its length, too short to truly be a novella, but too long for a typica...

This is a book unlike any other I have read. It is a concise shapeshifter of a story that pulled me in quickly and kept me engaged throughout. Set in a near future world plagued by species extinction and climate change, the story follows Ruby, a scientist who works with jellyfish. The book deals with fraying relationships: the relationships between Ruby and the humans around her, but also the relationships between humans and ecosystems, humans and nonhuman animals. Humans are being affected by a...

TW: Suicide, Mental health, Colonialism.Octavia Cade likes using speculative fiction to talk about science in new and interesting ways, and this shows in her work.The Grief is at large, more people are becoming afflicted with it. But what exactly is this Grief?It is "the undermining up-welling of loss in response to ecosystem devastation, the failure of conservation"No one knows how or why it strikes. "It wasn't the same for everyone. Some people didn't get it at all. Some people got it more tha...

⭐️⭐️⭐️✨“Can you watch something die and let it die? The answer, too often, was yes.”The Impossible Resurrection of Grief is a strange novella, that would be offensive if it weren’t gleaming with sharp truth. While ultimately pessimistic, this story is so important, as it holds the reader accountable, causing them to be more introspective, opening up their eyes to things they have chosen to ignore.This novella gazes unflinchingly at how humanity faces and more often chooses not to face, the bitte...

3.5 starsCalling this “unfinished” is sadly, quite apt. I wasn’t a fan of the “Sea Witch” twist in the second half either, which is why I can’t get myself to give this more starts.Still, the way Cade humanizes the scientists (without making them juvenile caricatures), and the process of science itself and how it connects us to the world it’s a breath of fresh air from the more mainstream depiction of science as “cold, unquestionable rationality” or the “mother nature is always right” neo-luddism...

Tw// suicide, self harm, depressionThis was a very unique read. I’d never read something like this before and I appreciate the themes explored in this a lot, but at the same time the book simply wasn’t for me.I’ll start with the good. The author has clearly done the required research and it shows in the writing. One of the most notable aspect was the handling of the Grief, the literary input regarding that, suicide, loneliness, depression, was put together really well and the focus on the enviro...

An unsettling and beautifully written speculative fiction on climate change, grief, colonialism, greed and tech. This book grabbed me from the beginning with images of the ‘Sea Witch’ in an abandoned saltwater pool surrounded by plastic suffering from the ‘Grief’. The ‘Grief’ is a psychological illness that flourishes and evolves as everything else collapses; it is contagious and, sometimes, hard to spot. It usually ends in death. Not everyone reacts the same to every ecological death. Through t...

My thoughts on this book are in this wrap up.

This short novella follows Ruby, a scientist, living in a time of Grief – when some are overwhelmed with a sense of loss and guilt for climate change and extinctions that ends in suicide. Ruby is always navigating her own susceptibility to it, and when her former colleague Marjorie is lost to Grief and leaves behind a mysterious stack of letters she begins to follow clues that lead her to several apparently ‘resurrected’ extinct species. However, these resurrections are anything but straightforw...

Not sure I’ve ever been so confused by a book before. I understand the grief, the eco grief but there was a whole lot of metaphor that I just couldn’t wrap my head around.