A review by natlbugz
Severance by Ling Ma

dark emotional sad medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

TLDR: If you like your dystopian fiction to feel unsettlingly close to reality, Severance is a must-read. It’s haunting, witty, and quietly profound in all the best ways. Ling Ma has absolutely earned her spot on my list of favorite authors. 
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Ling Ma’s Severance hit me like a slow, creeping wave I didn’t realize was building until I was completely submerged. This is speculative fiction at its finest—darkly funny, razor-sharp, and so eerily relevant it almost feels like it’s reading you. 
 
The story follows Candace Chen, a millennial navigating a post-apocalyptic world after a global pandemic wipes out most of the population. But honestly, it’s not even really about the pandemic—it’s about everything else. It’s about the numbing monotony of office life, the mindless routines we cling to even when the world is literally crumbling around us, and the bittersweet weight of memory. 
 
Ling Ma’s writing is phenomenal. The prose flows seamlessly between Candace’s past and present, capturing both the absurdity and the tragedy of modern life. There’s this incredible mix of humor and melancholy that makes you laugh one second and then slap you with existential dread the next. 
 
And that quote—“A second chance doesn't mean you're in the clear. In many ways, it is the more difficult thing. Because a second chance means that you have to try harder. You must rise to the challenge without the blind optimism of ignorance.”—just crushed me. It perfectly encapsulates the quiet weight of the story and the way it reflects on survival, resilience, and what it means to keep going when you’re not sure why. 
 
This is a book that sneaks up on you. At first, it seems like just another post-apocalyptic story, but it’s so much more than that. It’s a meditation on capitalism, nostalgia, and the strange contradictions of being human in a world that feels increasingly disconnected.