Book Review | Everything You and I Could Have Been If We Weren't You and I by Albert Espinosa

   

July 2, 2015;

Penguin Random House

Can you imagine a future where everyone has given up sleeping?

From the creator of the television series Red Band Society and author of the international bestseller The Yellow World comes this uniquely special novel.

What if I could reveal your secrets with just a glance? And what if I could feel with your heart just by looking at you? And what if --in a single moment-- I could know that we were made for each other? Marcos has just lost his mother, a famous dancer who taught him everything, and he decides that his world can never be the same without her. Just as he is about to make a radical change, a phone call turns his world upside down. ~Goodreads

What attracted me most about this book, when I saw it on NetGalley, was the simple but charming orange font. And the title was so unusually long, it has to have great meaning, right? Well as it happens, this is one of those books that have much greater content than what its title implied.

In the future, a drug was developed to eradicate human sleep. Marcos decided to join the great population, who gave up sleeping, after his mother’s death. For him, losing her is like losing all the beauty in everything. But just before he could inject himself, something much important, much bigger, than his plans took precedence.

The truth is that when I found out yesterday that my mother had left me,

I realized that I would leave the world.

I decided that the world had lost its best asset and I stopped believing in it, because nobody had held on to her; the world didn’t stop or even seem shocked by its loss.

It was Albert Espinosa’s keen prose that pulled me into the heart of this book. It has the ability to shake the reader and consider things we mostly ignore –sleeping, random thoughts, hugs, or unwanted affection. It’s interesting how he discussed minute things in profound detail. Imagine giving up the ability to dream, or reduce your existence to moving and be productive 24/7 and to have no escape from exhaustion or depression after each day. It’s so sad.

I burst into tears. I love that expression. You don’t say someone has burst into a meal or burst into a walk. You burst into tears or into laughter. I think it’s worth bursting into pieces for those feelings.

This book had a lot of things going on with grief and hope at the center of it all. The story figuratively and literally moves around, too. For a short book, it is tightly packed. The plot is new and strange, but nitpicking will only make it fall apart. And besides, you’ll miss the beautifully flowing story that it is.

Just like you laugh at somebody’s joke and you accept that their words make you happy, you shouldn’t fear telling someone that their skin, their eyes, their mouth make you feel something else. We have to decriminalize sexual acts, bring them into real life, everyday life, and tie them to life instead of sex.

I recommend that you read it too. Let us be reminded to view things without prejudice or malice.

Book details:

Title:  Everything You and I Could Have Been If WeWeren't You and I

Author:  Albert Espinosa

Publication:  July 2, 2015; Penguin Random House Grupo Editorial

Genre:  Fiction, Sci-fi/ Fantasy

Rating:  ★★★★

*Thank you Random House for lending me a copy in exchange for this unbiased review.