I Cheerfully Refuse by Leif Enger (2024): A Review

Title: I Cheerfully Refuse

Author: Leif Enger

Publication Year: 2024

Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐

Pages: 336

Source: eBook

Genre: Science Fiction, Literary Fiction, Dystopian Fiction

Disclaimer: This review is more a confession than a critique. I am certain that, under different circumstances, I Cheerfully Refuse could have been a five-star read for me, but I Sadly Refuse to rate it that way now. Circumstances matter! Right now, everything I read is filtered through rage and grief.

I Cheerfully Refuse (a title-within-the-title, fittingly meta) is a story rooted in love, grief, and the desperate search for the lost one: an Orpheus-type myth. The love between Lark and Rainy is so genuine and unique, so beautifully created, that for a few fleeting pages, you long for that kind of warmth and hope. It is poetic, and th author uses words to paint the beauty on the page. It’s also a book for book lovers, packed with literary references, a gift for anyone who seeks refuge in stories. I wanted to stay with that comfort, to lose myself in the poetry and the love. I needed that escape.

But reality comes roaring back, as it always does. This is dystopian fiction, after all. There is no delusion, no haven in love alone. Predictably, everything falls apart. I braced myself for the darkness, and yes, the ending brings a sliver of light. Rainy, in losing Lark, finds a different kind of love: a protective, almost desperate affection for Sol, a nine-year-old girl, and a fragile community of survivors. But the journey there is through a landscape of cruelty and atrocity that stings because it feels so familiar, so real. These are not just fictional horrors. They mirror the world I wake up to every day.

But here’s the truth: when your days are shaped by collective trauma and grief, when you see your people dying by the thousands, a novel’s dystopian horrors start to feel almost trivial - insulting, even. How can I feel for these fictional characters when real suffering far eclipses anything on the page? I found myself furious at the book. How can one be moved by a few tragedies in the book, while something otherworldly is happening around me? The hopeful ending even infuriated me, making me wonder why we never get such endings. We have never been even close to a hopeful ending.

I also longed for escape, for just the love story, just the poetic language. And yet, I couldn’t turn to something lighter, either. Guilt gnaws at me when I dare read about happiness. Rage simmers when I read about suffering that pales beside the reality I know. I am trapped between anger and grief, unable to reconcile fiction’s comforts or cruelties with the world outside these pages.

As I warned, this review is more about the weight I bring as a reader than the book itself. I’m sorry for the outpouring of fury and grief, but sometimes a book is just the spark to a fire already burning inside.