Impossible to believe this was written pre-pandemic, especially given how much of it tracked with how COVID unfolded.

Candance's "millennial disaffection" seems a veneer on top of a rich picture of contemporary working life, particularly highlighted in her relationship to Jonathan, but I felt that the post-apocalyptic sections, particularly the implications of Bob and the treatment of the fevered, were underdeveloped. Ma could have made stronger connections between Candace's pre-fever work on Bibles and the post-fever religious cult she found herself in.

I think that's the strength and weakness of the novel simultaneously: in an artistic landscape that spells everything out for an assumed audience of idiots, Severance is a decidedly "show don't tell" narrative. Ma lets you draw your own conclusions, but it's a double-edged sword, as her themes are therefore less clear and her point muddied. I can see the implied question around what it means to be a zombie, a corporate drone, but the real takeaway of the novel seems to be that maybe being a zombie isn't so bad – or at least is a fate we should resign ourselves to.