Rubik

by Elizabeth Tan

Elena Rubik can’t seem to stay dead. She persists: as a set of corneas, as a newsletter subscriber, as a member of fanfiction forums. Her best friend Jules Valentine meanwhile is unwittingly inveigled into an indie-film turned corporate branding stunt. When Jules leaks information about the true story behind the video – by then an overworked viral meme – wannabe investigative reporter April Kuan is assigned the case. But as April trails Jules all over Perth she too becomes ensnared in the machinations of shady corporate interests as the very laws of physics and time begin to bend.

A hit in Tan’s native Australia, and now developing a following Stateside too, Rubik is a brilliantly entwined novel-in-stories that slips outside the borders of realism. Spotted with disappearances, mysteries and told with a sharp-edged wit and cutting social commentary, it is an original and ingenious reflection of technological anxiety, loneliness and connectivity in the internet age.

Genres: Short Stories, Fiction, Contemporary, Literary Fiction, Australia, Speculative Fiction, Fantasy

350 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2017

About the author

Elizabeth Tan is a Perth writer and sessional academic at Curtin University. Her work has appeared in Best Australian Stories 2016, The Lifted Brow, Seizure, Pencilled In, Westerly, Overland, Mascara Literary Review, and other Australian journals and anthologies. Her first book, Rubik, was published in 2017.

Reviews

[Marchpane · Rating 5 out of 5]

Rubik name-drops films like Inception and the Matrix, but for me the closest comparison to its kooky surrealism is Charlie Kaufman movies.

What start out as unrelated short stories, gradually overlap and converge into one whole. Like a Rubik's cube, the colours unscramble, but the puzzle isn't solved completely. This book messes with your expectations constantly.

Fresh and inventive, this is a terrific debut.

[Blair · Rating 5 out of 5]

Rubik is a virtuosic kaleidoscope of a novel-in-stories. Well, no – it’s a Rubik’s cube, by its own admission. But (in a typically self-referential flourish) it's an unsolvable Rubik's cube, one with six faces but seven colours. This is a fragmentary masterpiece that acknowledges its own gaps – this page has been left blank intentionally. It reminded me of the perfume I wear most days, described thus: please be advised that the formula comes incomplete; you are the first ingredient.

In the beginning, we meet the title character, Elena Rubik, and she dies. That’s the first chapter, a six-page story. The blurb says she 'can't seem to stay dead; she persists'. And it's true that Elena recurs throughout the book, but it's so much richer than that. There's a whole network of people who are reconfigured through new perspectives. Characters reappear in the strangest of circumstances, and sometimes we can't be sure whether what we're seeing is a reappearance, or a coincidence, or something imagined. The world seems to rearrange itself.

In these pages, Elena’s housemate agrees to act as a stunt double in an amateur film, and unwittingly becomes a pawn in the strange relationship between its director and the original actress. Two boys try to track down their missing teacher. A student works in retail and wonders what happened to a fanfic writer he used to talk to on his favourite forum.

But also: a girl and her shape-shifting octopus evade the clutches of an evil corporation. In a world without animals, a woman takes apart and tries to repair a mechanical bird. A young photographer goes on an assignment that involves a shoot-out in a claw machine arcade and a mission to free a cat from a metaphysical safe, and only gets madder from there.

My favourite of the 14 stories – or should I say chapters? – were 'Retcon', 'Good Birds Don't Fly Away', 'U (or, That Little Extra Something)', 'This Page Has Been Left Blank Intentionally', 'Luxury Replicants', and 'Kuan x 05', but almost all of them are brilliant.

I have seen Rubik compared to A Visit from the Goon Squad, and I definitely agree, but I think this is even better. It’s Goon Squad meets Where'd You Go, Bernadette meets The Circle meets Skippy Dies meets The Ghost Network, and they get high and stay up all night rewatching Inception, The Matrix and Studio Ghibli films, then fall asleep and have really trippy dreams. It’s clever, and steeped in a deep appreciation of pop culture, and often thrilling – both in terms of the stories' actual plots and because you just don't know what it's going to do next. Also, this is a book that isn’t afraid to admit some things just can’t be explained. It understands that the value of mystery can be greater than the comfort provided by resolution.

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[L.S. Popovich · Rating 5 out of 5]

This Review has been left Intentionally Blank






















The author approves of interstitial mystery. Enigmas are not shunned, but rather lathered till the thick cryptic aura crystallizes into a powder kegger. Characters doing odd, compelling things. The Happening x Inception. She knows how to incorporate phantasms of pop culture, like abstract sculptures of social id. Uncanny valley trigger warning. Magical realism in subtle doses. Like early Murakami. This quirky debut is a savage wet willy of a book. My eyes were Elmer'd to the page. One-click bought without thought the author's next-in-line, viz., Smart Ovens for Lonely People, which I hope is exactly what it sounds like.

The author's dry, protoplasmic web comic is available here as of this posting:
http://et-maispourquoi.blogspot.com/

Devoured.
Please, Sir, Canst I haz some more?

I am enthused. The author's fandom is infectious. A skinny dip into brilliant writing that does not flaunt its wit. Not precisely lyric, but empathically resonant. Engaged the nostalgic receptors.

Cartoonish madness played straight-faced, meatballs-to-the-wall, Goofy-suited literary innuendos. In a metamorphic world, conspiratorial cosmic strategies emerge, coalesce, and haunt the interiors of estranged characters. So many motifs. The seven-colored cube, the emergence of trends in the peripheries, the online presence and generation of virtual ghosts, the tentacled collision of dream with that precipice of youth regarding the utter squalor inherent in the prospect of adulthood. headphone jacks.

Every disparate section fondled my fictive sweet spot. The author fired fantods at my bamboozled oglers. Experienced brain-freeze. My mind was like an over-microwaved Stretch Armstrong.

Unconventional, unapproachable, uncontainable, real, poignantly meta. The author is galvanized for a miraculous career. Please unleash your potential, E. T., and phone us when your next novel is nascent.

[Jaclyn · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thrilled to read some experimental Australian fiction about life, loneliness and death in the internet age. This book had to contend with some major personal life events and the fact that it held my attention is a testament to how good it is. Elizabeth Tan, we've needed you, so glad you're here.

[Sarah · Rating 2 out of 5]

I am fully willing to admit that I just didn't get this. (But my two stars stands for now...)

[Michael Livingston · Rating 5 out of 5]

A wonderfully smart and engaging book, with the links between the component stories only gradually becoming clear as you go. There's so much going on here - grief, loneliness, technology, hyper-capitalism, authenticity and on and on and on. I want to go back and read it again to join a few more dots.

[Tomq · Rating 3 out of 5]

First, a review. Second, an attempt at analysis.

The review:

“Rubik” can be read as a collection of nearly independent short stories. The stories are all connected, but in a somewhat loose manner. Many of them are exciting in their own right, some more than others. The stories are well-written, though as others have commented the writing is quite rich, quite "creative" in a "creative writing-phd" manner. The short stories deal with themes of identity, meaning-searching, alienation and predation, loss, and making one’s own path. They do so in roundabout ways: a boy copes with his piano-playing mediocrity, a Japanese (?) child and her “multi-purpose octopus” stop an evil corporation in cartoon/anime fashion, a woman lives her robot transformation fantasy, etc.

But to be fair, if this was all that Rubik was, it wouldn’t be enough to capture my attention and interest. That’s not all that Rubik is. It’s a puzzle. The stories are more closely connected than they seem, and they fit together into a coherent overall narrative. But to put that back together, one has to solve an extremely difficult puzzle. On the first read, this amounts to putting together a Rube Goldberg machine from its scattered pieces, without having as much as a diagram of it, without even knowing, initially, that it's supposed to be some kind of Rube Goldberg machine. A bit too difficult for me, which is why I’m giving it only 3 stars, though I believe it’s meant to be read twice and the second time around it would be easier to piece everything together.

The analysis:

Given that I’m not sure whether I’ve figured this puzzle out, I don’t think this counts as a spoiler; rather, take this as some friendly hints before you begin. But if you feel very certain of your ability to figure this out on your own, don’t read further.

So, Rubik is full of meaningful references, and each reference is a hint. A good place to start is the title, which has three different meanings:

- Rubik’s cube – broken down into a myriad of colorful little pieces that it is up to the user to bring back together. In the novel, an (unsolvable!) Rubik’s cube appears.
- Rube Goldberg machine – a weird machine that once started keeps moving until its full resolution, in apparently arbitrary fashion, but carefully designed nonetheless. In the novel, a Rube Goldberg machine appears.
- Re-Ubik - where Ubik is the Philip K. Dick sci-fi masterpiece (for whatever reason nobody on the internet, including several extensive reviews of this book, seems to have picked up on this until now! A google search for “Philip K Dick Ubik Elizabeth Tan Rubik” gives zero results...). Beyond the title, the references to Ubik or Philip K. Dick are extremely numerous: half-life vs. virtual-life after death; replicants; mechanical animals; sinister corporate presences; the manifestations of the voice of Runciter/Spiegel; April Kuan’s "power" vs. Pat Conley’s power; the twin killed at birth; coins and the faces on them; the references to movies that are themselves inspired by P. K. Dick, e.g. Inception, Matrix, The Truman Show… The cat named “Ulysses” is probably a reference to James Joyce’s Ulysses – another novel with deep ties to a prior literary work.

Character names are often more or less direct references. I mentioned the cat Ulysses. There’s also Jules Valentine (Jill Valentine, Resident Evil), April Kuan (April O’Neil?), Seed and HarvestTime (the real-life Apple corporation), and probably many more that I didn’t figure out (Peter Pushkin: push-key? Or a reference to the Russian poet?). Philip K. Dick usually infused his character names with hidden meanings; this is also done here. There's also a lot of stuff I didn't quite figure out: Seeds of Time, for instance; the name of the bullies in Peter Pushkin's story (they resemble brand names), and are these the same bullies encountered by Audrey/April? The faceless corporate drones, who/what do they reference? Etc. etc.

Rubik can be read as a continuation and update of the reflections proposed in Philip K. Dick’s Ubik (which is itself a puzzle novel). Philip K. Dick explored the conflictual relationship between an individual and reality, encompassing metaphysics, weird theological obsessions, drug abuse, mental illness, and hostile invasions into the hero’s own reality, in a sort of detective investigation seeking the culprits for reality itself. “Ubik”, despite its bleak tone, concludes optimistically with the hero Joe Chip (a sort of combination between Jesus-Christ and Corben Dallas) becoming the maintainer and preserver of his own reality.

Rubik, in contrast, explores the conflictual relationship between the person and society. Faceless capitalistic brands are out to capture our bodies and our minds, influencing them covertly or directly, with reassuring instructions and with threats of violence. And so are schools, parents, even friends. Against this, we seek to assert ourselves, to become our own persons. Where Ubik deals with schizophrenic grown up adults, Rubik deals with young people and children; where Ubik deals with alien God/Satan-like forces using biblical allusions, Rubik deals with disturbingly familiar evil corporations presences using pop-culture allusions. Because there was no virtual world in PK Dick's time as writer, only the most basic video games, no online forums, no social media to share "memes", he relied instead on unexplained mental powers; Elizabeth Tan corrects this in Rubik. Rubik concludes when April Kuan enters adulthood, choosing among multiple imaginary pasts the one that suits her best, the one that holds promise and preserves her individuality.

In all – it’s a cool novel, if it is a novel at all - in some ways it is more an art project than a novel (like the indie movie that loops and can be viewed from any starting position). It is difficult to avoid an unfavorable comparison with Philip K. Dick’s masterpiece, which has the advantage of really working as a "mere" novel. PKD’s Ubik is 200 pages, tight and full of suspense, the metaphysics fitting seemlessly with the action-packed narrative. Rubik is 300 pages, somewhat slow and loose, too confusing to keep me fully engaged for its duration. But then I'm just not the right reader - I usually don't like experimental novels! So maybe Rubik will seem really excellent to those who like this sort of stuff - certainly it is much better than for instance Cloud Atlas.

Despite that, maybe I’ll read Rubik again, as the novel suggests (you have everything necessary to begin again: April Kuan's life, but also this novel), and like it more that time. After all, it did take me a couple of readings to really figure out Ubik.

[Janelle Janson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thank you so much Unnamed Press for providing my free copy of RUBIK by Elizabeth Tan - all opinions are my own.

This is a very inventive, unconventional, and interesting debut! RUBIK is a series of short stories that appear to be separate, but as you go on, the narrative interweaves into one cohesive book...much like a Rubik's Cube. It’s so strange and unusual, but in the most awesome way. It covers everything from technology to capitalism, to loneliness and grief. It appeals to my undying love of pop culture, fandom, and science fiction. Also, the author gives a nod to one of my favorite movies of all time, Inception. You follow a collection of eccentric characters, starting with a young girl, Elena Rubik, who gets killed in an accident and leaves behind a mysterious electronic footprint.

I cannot recommend this high-concept, fantastically written, imaginative book enough! If you want to read something that is truly unique, then RUBIK is a must! I cannot wait to see what Tan comes up with next!

[Natasha Tresham · Rating 3 out of 5]

Started off really well. I thought all the threads would come together in the end but it careered out of control, kind of like listening to somebody recounting a vivid dream, which is only really interesting for the dreamer not the listener. Some of the chapters were excellent in isolation but towards the end I just wanted the book to be over.

[Rachel León · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love interlinked short story collections and this one is quite brilliant.

[Bram · Rating 5 out of 5]

As a child of the 80s, I was well and truly a member of the Rubik's Cube generation. I totally sucked at it. While all my friends twisted and turned the little squares until they lined up into six beautifully solid sides, I was forced to resort to the safe space of the spatially challenged: cheating. Sometimes I'd peel off all the stickers and re-stick them to form a slightly off-kilter face with peeling edges. Other times, I'd pull the entire cube apart into its constituent squares and carefully reassemble it. All of which is a round about way of saying, I read Elizabeth Tan's Rubik with a sense of exhilaration I can only imagine was felt by those friends more savvy with the whole twist and win strategy as they neared completion. Rubik is wonderfully original; a series of stories that seem, at first, to be only tangentially related but which spiral into an intricately woven narrative that is quite clearly a novel. It's playful, weird, thrilling and, at times, rather moving. Put simply, you should read it.

[Lindy · Rating 5 out of 5]

I am told over and over again that the defining marker of our time is the breakdown of context, particularly on the internet, with its memes and ARGs and fanfiction. When there is no context, we force ourselves to string together series of possibly related events.

We tell ourselves stories in order to live [...] We look for the sermon in the suicide, for the social or moral lesson in the murder of five. We interpret what we see, select the most workable of the multiple choices. We live entirely, especially if we are writers, by the imposition of a narrative line upon disparate images, by the 'ideas' with which we have learned to freeze the shifting phantasmagoria which is our actual experience [...] I was supposed to have a script, and had mislaid it. I was supposed to hear cues, and no longer did. I was meant to know the plot, but all I knew was what I saw: flash pictures in variable sequence, images with no 'meaning' beyond their temporary arrangement, not a movie but a cutting-room experience.
-- Joan Didion "The White Album

Rubik is also a critique of late capitalism, where corporations are people and objects have agency. It functions as a form of magic, I suppose.

But I consider that the matter of defining what is real — that is a serious topic, even a vital topic. And in there somewhere is the other topic, the definition of the authentic human. Because the bombardment of pseudo- realities begins to produce inauthentic humans very quickly, spurious humans — as fake as the data pressing at them from all sides. My two topics are really one topic; they unite at this point. Fake realities will create fake humans. Or, fake humans will generate fake realities and then sell them to other humans, turning them, eventually, into forgeries of themselves. So we wind up with fake humans inventing fake realities and then peddling them to other fake humans. It is just a very large version of Disneyland. You can have the Pirate Ride or the Lincoln Simulacrum or Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride — you can have all of them, but none is true.
-- Philip K. Dick "How to Build a Universe that Doesn't Fall Apart Two Days Later"

Inception is a terrible movie though, so it annoys me that it's such a point of reference within the text.

[Toby · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow. I wish I had written this book. Somehow Elizabeth Tan has written the perfect book for me. The strange sense of disconnection with, whilst still for the most part feeling firmly based in, reality that is captured by this novel-in-stories captured my imagination from the first exciting story and didn't let go til the brilliant ending. Keenly observational writing coupled with delightful prose and an ability to write in multiple tones throughout has marked Elizabeth Tan as somebody to keep an eye on. Her short story collection has an excellent title - Smart Ovens For Lonely People - and I may even break my general attitude of not reading short stories just to experience more of her superb storytelling.

Recommended by the same person with great taste that recently recommended The Inland Sea by Madeleine Watt, i'm so grateful that there's somebody out there with an eye for untypical Australian novels and storytellers so he can keep putting them in front of my face. It's a nice change from the usual Poms pretending to be Aussie too.

[Silke · Rating 4 out of 5]

I finished this book about a week ago, and it has been lingering in the back of my mind ever since. Rubik is definitely one of the stranger books I’ve read, and I’m sure it won’t be for all of you, but I personally ended up really enjoying it!
Set in Perth, Australia, Rubik is a collection of chapters, each forming separate short stories, which slowly overlap and intertwine, leaving you to piece together a puzzle of coincidences, a Rubik’s cube not meant to be solved. It’s an experimental reflection on pop-culture, bordering on the dystopian and the surreal, however so readable I couldn’t put it down. It deals with topics such as technological anxiety, consumerism, paranoia, grief, and loneliness in the internet age.
The book follows a range of different characters, not all of them human, who at first seem to be completely disconnected. As you get further into the book, however, they start to reappear in each other’s stories, and they’re slowly connected by subtle clues and reappearing elements which tie together the otherwise very fragmented plot. I really enjoyed puzzling the plot together, and loved the sense of paranoia and anxiety conveyed in the eerie repetitions and strange coincidences. As soon as I finished the book, I wanted to start over and search for more clues and connections, although I doubt I would ever figure this book out completely. Each chapter was a fresh adventure, and the writing was simply phenomenal. My only issue with the book was that the blurb on the back made it sound like it would revolve around a single character, and have a more structured and connected plot, which was far from the case. I really liked the way the book actually turned out to be structured, but I was very confused throughout the first few chapters, having expected it to be one big connected story. The blurb also describes characters who are not introduced until the very last chapters, so I would recommend just skipping it and jumping straight into the book.
Overall, I would highly recommend this one to anyone who likes more experimental and strange fiction. It’s quite a ride, but it’s definitely worth the read!

4/5 stars

Thanks a ton to the publisher for sending over a copy for me to read and review.

[Carolyn DeCarlo · Rating 3 out of 5]

I started this book in September but did not finish it before leaving for Australia for the month of October (it was a library copy, so I returned it and checked it back out when I returned). So, I finished this book sometime after returning to NZ in November, after putting a copy on reserve & waiting for it to come to me.

This book is kind of an experimental novel, kind of a set of linked short stories. There were certain sections I loved and wished Elizabeth Tan had returned to, like Pikkoro and the Multipurpose Octopus and Rubik, the title 'story'. I appreciated the inventiveness, but not how scattered it felt to read, and some of its content (like Congratulations You May Have Already Won, with its use of a lonely man writing to a spam email account) has been done before and does not appeal to me. For a debut, though, I was very pleased to have read this and am keen to check out what Elizabeth puts out next.

Also, no fault of the author, but the synopsis on the back of the book is incredibly misleading! There is truly no point in reading it -- if you like the sound of the synopsis, you won't find it in the book. And if it turns you off, it has no bearing on the actual book & so has also misled you. Readers, beware!

[Laura Hart · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this book and never wanted it to end. The universe Tan created here completely sucked me in with its connections, repetitions, and omens. Uncanny. Shifting, spooky, always just out of reach. Some of the stories, like “Luxury Replicants,” feature George Saunders-esque humor, but all of them are uniquely their own creature. And how appropriate that the last story is modeled like a video game, when the entire collection feels like a video game (or, more obviously, like a Rubik’s cube). All of them were my favorites; please don’t make me pick one. Highly recommend.

[Malcolm · Rating 2 out of 5]

Didn't click with this one. Was about to give up after 100 pages but thought I could see the story emerging. But it didn't.

[Nancy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Finished: 26.04.2018
Genre: short stories
Rating: B (3,5)
Review:
I read these stories in the train to Amsterdam.
I kept dozing off....but was not sure
if it was the writing or the fact that my alarm clock
got me out of bed at 04:30 AM.
I think it was the latter.
Weak point: The reader who is not digital savvy will
wonder what is Elisabeth Tan talking about?
“She Alt-Tabs to Indesign.
She toggles between serif and sans-serif body copy.
"Arch PDF’s the page …and sends it to Chris…”
Weak point: ironically many short stories are too, too long!
Strong point: These stories are filled with millennial’s
mischief and creativity. It is a sign of the times.
These stories offer the reader a new perspective in creative writing.
Conclusion:
"Like when someone you know dies and several years
pass and technology advances.
It creates a new normal.”
Story: ‘The Page Has Been Left Blank Intentionally"
Are these stories an example of the new normal?
But I must in all fairness admit...
The cover is a great visual that reflects the
twisting/turning of events and characters in the stories.
It is quite an achievement to stay in control of the narrative and cast of characters
(in different forms) as is done by Elisabeth Tan.

Last Thoughts:
This collection of short stories may appeal to others
…but personally I still prefer something more in a narrative.
Raymond Carver, William Trevor, Shirley Jackson give the reader a text
full of edges and silences, haunted by things not said,
not even to be guessed at.
#ReadTheBook by the new generation... and decide for yourself.

[Laura]

I got super into around 100 pages of this, I think would fall in my apparently new category “glad I read this” but high effort to read and follow all of the connections. My favorite story lines were on the piano student and teacher and artist and narrator.

“A smile which lands with a clueless thud, like a book sliding through a library return slot.”

“A story about the inescapability of our bodies, the inextricable relationship between sound and space. Don’t even try to escape. Your body will always find you out.”

[Sharon · Rating 5 out of 5]

Rubik is so many things at once - a collection of somewhat related, intensifying snippets, a tragedy, a thriller, an anime episode, a commentary on technology and corporations - it's hard to pin down, but is essential reading. Stories take on the facets of the eponymous cube, leaving you with half-answers and wild imaginings. Don't expect a neat storyline or ending - this is the novel's answer to The Matrix and Inception. You have everything necesary to begin, if you dare.

[Sunili · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the weirdest and actually-literally fantastic book I’ve read in a while. Which is kinda hard to compute with the fact that so many of the settings are bits of mundane suburban Perth. I’ve been stewing in the way it felt as my brain and heart worked overtime to absorb it. Elizabeth Tan made a puzzle that explodes when everything clicks into place and I LOVED IT!!
Five shiny suns ☀️☀️☀️☀️☀️

[Nicole · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really can’t explain how much I loved this, it was just everything I want in a book and upon finishing it I just wanted to start it again. Probably my favorite book of the year, maybe a new all time favorite.

[Alex Owens · Rating 5 out of 5]

Utterly weird, but strangely addictive - the plots make no sense, then they do, then they don't again... some of the coolest experimental contemporary fiction I've read in a while!

[Lillian Li · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you love trippy, experimental ruminations on the intersections of technology and the human condition, read Rubik. A connected short story collection, it's so smart, so inventive, and so emotionally resonant it'll flabbergast you. Every story stacks on top of the one before, but also the one that comes after, like one of Escher's illusionary staircases. An example of its brilliance? The "Homestyle Country Pie" one of the characters eats right before she's hit by a car is reincarnated in a later story where we follow it in gorgeous, chilling detail from factory birth to convenience store life to roadside death.

[Kate · Rating 5 out of 5]

I picked Rubik up after encountering some weird short fiction by Elizabeth Tan. The short fiction was inspired and this collection (or Rubik's Cube) of short stories did not disappoint.
Rubik is one of the livelier short story collections I've encountered. It is very much set in the technological age and deals with modern life in a relatable way. Each story is different and some are quite experimental, but the variety kept me interested. I loved the pop culture references. The book is like wading through a dream; it doesn't necessarily make sense, but connects disjointedly in the end.
Tan's prose are lyrical and have a Murakami vibe. I wanted to savour this book, and I thoroughly enjoyed it as an alternative to so many other humdrum short story collections.

[Lauredhel · Rating 2 out of 5]

Very promising halfway through, but disappeared up its own fundament. I didn't like Inception either, though, so if you did, take this with a grain of salt.

[Irma Ravkic · Rating 3 out of 5]

It was very confusing in the beginning, and I was thinking whether to give up on the book. But then I found the thread!
For this review, take into account that English is not my native language, but I have been using it all the time for 7 years. However, I am not used to reading abstract and extremely excessive writing styles of fiction novels. I am more into the scientific readings. Maybe because of this, I couldn't easily get into the book. However, I liked how the story was intertwined. I had a feeling that the author didn't want you to get all the details (just like in '100 years of solitude'), but instead create this overall haze. When you see a familiar motive come back you think: "this is it, I found a thread in the story", but then it slips through your fingers, and you lose it. I did like this feeling of total confusion about where the story and the characters are going. I now see the thread of the story, but it still remains an unsolved Rubik's cube. I will definitely read more books by Elizabeth Tan, because I like her style of story telling.

[Mya Hicks · Rating 4 out of 5]

The most mind-boggling book I've read. Each story is set in the same storyworld but at different points in time and feature different characters. The stories are all unified by coincidental connections which gave me a perpetual feeling of deja vu as I was reading (e.g. the protagonist in the first story is killed when she's accidentally hit by a car; a protagonist in another story happens to be a passenger in that car). The plot completely bends reality and is hard to make sense of but is also kinda genius. Gave me the same brain-achy feeling as Everything Everywhere All at Once which I'm not sure I enjoyed--I think it would take at least two read-throughs to actually understand wtf is going on. But I loved Tan's playfulness in her storytelling and her gorgeous prose which I also appreciated in her other book Smart Ovens for Lonely People. I LOVE books that expand my understanding of what is possible within the limits of written fiction and, at the very least, this book certainly did that.

[Brad Lambert · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was a revelation to me, a great collection of interwoven short stories. The stories where not immediately apparent how they were interwoven. Reading this was like peeling an onion with finding not just more onion but something very special. This taped into my love of pop culture especially the movies The Matrix and Inception but many other things as well. There were points I was taken back to the point were I read Vonnegut voraciously, there is that way of looking at the world sideways which both Elizabeth Tan and Kurt Vonnegut both have and are able to share through interesting stories. I also loved that I could feel the stories being about locations in Perth Western Australia which was nice, I can only read so many books about New York after all.

I would definitely recommend this book to others.

[J · Rating 1 out of 5]

Rubik has a large number of disparate, parallel storylines that you hope will adroitly weave together, slowly converging and neatly coalescing in a brilliant ending.

They don’t. Most of the storylines appear for a handful of chapters and are then completely forgotten without any conclusion whatsoever, a few are unsatisfactorily resolved, and a tiny handful make it to a non-sequitur ending that felt shoehorned in to perfunctorily tie together a few tired threads.

In the author’s credit, the individual storylines were engaging enough that I eagerly devoured about 75% of the book before realizing there wasn’t going to be any clever resolution, and then begrudgingly slogged through the last 25% just to confirm what I already knew.