How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe

The typical SF novel takes one novel or extraordinary idea and builds its story around said idea. In that regard, Charles Yu is not the typical SF writer. Sure enough, time travel and loops are tried and true topics. And though these topics lie at the core of his book, he enriches his story with a truckload of fascinating and seldom thought of ideas. Especially in the first half, I was confronted with marvelous and imaginative ideas page after page, it never gets boring and it was just a delight to read. Surely enough, there is a plot, but I felt that it’s kind of secondary; the book needs a plot but it shines in its world building - it’s just sad, that the book is a bit on the short site; so many ideas worth exploring, but no space to give depth to them. And even the story itself with those classical time travel conundrums is engaging because of Yus in-universe explanations; time travel as a branch of science, science-fiction itself as a branch of science and reality! It was impossible to put down, to pause reading; it was a rush, almost a feverdream to read and most of all a delight - yes I repeat myself, but I can’t stress this enough. Five stars because it made me genuinely happy while reading.