I Cheerfully Refuse
By Leif Enger

This book appeared on enough Top Ten of 2024 lists from my closest book twins last year for me to feel like I had missed a trick, so when it turned up on Netgalley UK lately I leapt on it. Is it only being released there now, or perhaps it's the paperback edition? Regardless, I'm thrilled to have gotten a copy.

I love a voicey story, and from the get-go,
I was enthralled by Rainy (Rainier) and also by Enger's beautifully crafted sentences.

This is a dystopian quest story, set in the near future, in and around the waters and shores of Lake Superior. From the beginning we pick up clues about the nature of apocalyptic events and their outcomes for society and the environment. We know that the world has reverted to a feudal type system, resources are scarce, the future seems bleak, suicide is the only option for many.

There's a good 25% of set up in this story as Enger takes his time to reveal the main characters and their motivations. Some readers report that this is slow. True, but also necessary for world building, but then a major event kick starts the journey and we're off to the races.

There are so many comparisons that came to mind while reading this. Think Kevin Costner's Waterworld meets The Odyssey. A survivalist chase in a post ice cap melt environment where anything you have is something that someone else might kill you for.

I became so invested in this story, my heart was in my mouth several times.
It has allusions to scenarios that don't seem all that speculative any more, where the most powerful billionaires have taken everything from everyone else, including their humanity.

But through the doom and gloom, people still want to read and make music, to endeavour to thrive in like minded communities, to find family and love.

Where there is life there is hope.

I loved this.

Publication Date: 3rd April 2025
Thanks to ##Netgalley and #AtlanticBooks for providing an eGalley for review purposes.

Thank you to NetGalley and Atlantic books for an early Kindle copy of this book.

I Cheerfully Refuse is a dystopian novel set somewhere in the future, I would guess around 50 years from now but it isn't made clear and is probably irrelevant (but, I like detail!) Time, greed, and climate change have created a world that is seemingly beyond repair and aside from small cohesive communities, it is now down to every individual to find a way of surviving. Many people are finding this too hard and are committing suicide with Willow, a drug purported to take you to the next world.

Books are loved and protected by few but illiteracy is now normal, and welcomed by those in control, creating a lawless society ruled over dangerously by billionaires and pirates alike.

Rainy is a beautiful character, a gentle bear of a man, who is happy with his life; A wife, Lark, whom he adores, close friends, and his bass guitar, which earns him money as a part-time musician. This is upended when he takes in a young man who is on the run and his wife dies as a result. Not a natural sailor he escapes on a sailboat, Flower, who has a character of her own. They embark on a perilous journey, encountering pirates on land and sea, but experiencing many life-affirming moments in between, including the rescue of 9-year-old Sol, who is much older in spirit than her age suggests.

This is a complex read and one to be savoured, not rushed. There is much in it to be extracted: turns of phrase, quotes, descriptions. It is going on my list of books to either read again or listen to the audiobook. I was reading the novel on Kindle and should have saved more extracts, but this is a favourite: 'Lawmen will invoke the law, but the only law they really know is gravity. Force flows downward, and Werryck was far above these local badges'.

Beautiful book, set in a dystopian future that feels worryingly real (oligarchy, employment as servitude, etc - but what really got me is that reading is suspect and the nation’s leader is proudly illiterate).

It’s hard to write a review because nothing I can say can compete with the lyrical prose! It’s definitely one of my most memorable reads of the year. With grief at the centre, it contains darkness and despair but is ultimately a hopeful read.

I received an ARC of this book from NetGalley and the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

The writing style was a little staccato at the start and took a few pages to get into the rhythm of it. Well worth it, once you enter the flow. I loved this book, for its highs and lows, which come painfully crashing into each other.

Don’t expect a full explanation of how and why the future world has turned dysfunctional. There’s just enough details to roll with the story, and snippets of detail emerge throughout the book to allow us to follow the protagonist, Rainy as he’s forced from his fragile balance of happiness, on a voyage of escape.

Despite the challenging circumstances of life in this future reality, the champions in the story are those who find joy in what appears to be the darkest of times. The lows and depravity which brought the world to its future dystopia only seek to contrast against the highlights - books, literature, friends, music. Great interweaving of events which allows the colour and contrast between the oscillations to show.

Succinctly written, beautifully laid out and well worth a read.

Curious concept, which got me excited.
Lark and Rainy are a lovely couple. They are both good souls who lead a fulfilling life in the midst of a dystopian society, a complex metaphor of our current world and one its potential futures, which I could not entirely decipher.
They remain good and content despite the chaos.
Then something happens and Rainy needs to set sail. On a boat. Both literally and metaphorically, reminiscent of Orpheus, he has a journey.
The journey tells us more about Rainy and the society.

Now, how to be fair about this book?
It had immense potential; the premise checked the boxes in terms of my personal preferences.
I like Sol, Rainy and Lark.
I liked that this was a little dark, but not without hope.
I liked the criticisms it makes (about billionaires, illiteracy) and the metaphors. I like to be rewarded as a reader for paying attention, spending time with the characters and their story world. In this case, I did not fully grasp it.
I wanted more plot, more characterisation and a slightly different writing, different pacing and more context.

I really enjoyed this book. The words are poetic and rather beautiful.

It is about grief anf coming to terms with feelings and loss. It is a slow pace read and I rather enjoyed the plot and it seemed to me that the story was a metaphor about the actual happening.

It is unusual but I honestly found it uplifting and I am quite happy to recommend

A slow-paced, lyrically written dystopian that didn’t quite the mark for me.

Opening and scene-setting is very long, the first 25% of the book, in fact. I didn’t mind this because I liked spending time with Lark, but I mentally kept checking my watch to see when we’d actually get the story underway.

I think my favourite bits were when Rainy was on the open water in Lake Superior and exploring the coastline while sitting with this grief. There is some truly beautiful writing and it created a profound sense of place. There’s one section where Rainy observes some seagulls resting on the boat that was beautifully evocative and emotionally stirring. There’s a lot of detail about sailing which will appeal to boating folks!

Once Sol joined the tale, I started noticing some distracting inconsistencies with Rainy’s characterization and motivations. I didn’t understand why Rainy jeopardized his own safety (and his beloved bass guitar!) on freeing Sol after he’d returned her to land. Later, his aggressiveness with his captors on her behalf didn’t ring true - it didn’t feel plausible to me that he could have that kind of a bond with her after a couple of weeks.

After the bridge section, the story went a bit off the rails for this reader. I confess I’m still a bit confused about what even happened on the giant ship.

The dystopian world didn’t feel as fleshed out as I needed it to be, I finished the book sitting with a lot of question about the world and its mechanics. While I don’t read dystopian fiction to be uplifted, even recognizing that grief is a prominent theme, the hopelessness and bleakness of the book did get to me a bit. Coupled with the very, very slow pace, I did struggle to pick it up sometimes.

The cover is beautiful!