Review – I Cheerfully Refuse by Leif Enger (4/5 stars)

Reading Level: Adult
Genre: Science Fiction/Dystopia
Length: 322 pages
Publisher:‎ Grove Press
Release Date: April 2, 2024
ASIN: B0CH1NHWNW
Stand Alone or Series: Stand Alone
Source: Borrowed ebook from library
Rating: 4/5 stars

“Set in a not-too-distant America, I Cheerfully Refuse is the tale of a bereaved and pursued musician embarking under sail on a sentient Lake Superior in search of his departed, deeply beloved, bookselling wife. Rainy, an endearing bear of an Orphean narrator, seeks refuge in the harbors, fogs and remote islands of the inland sea. Encountering lunatic storms and rising corpses from the warming depths, Rainy finds on land an increasingly desperate and illiterate people, a malignant billionaire ruling class, crumbled infrastructure and a lawless society. Amidst the Gulliver-like challenges of life at sea and no safe landings, Rainy is lifted by physical beauty, surprising humor, generous strangers, and an unexpected companion in a young girl who comes aboard. And as his innate guileless nature begins to make an inadvertent rebel of him, Rainy’s private quest for the love of his life grows into something wider and wilder, sweeping up friends and foes alike in his strengthening wake.”

Series Info/Source: This is a stand alone book. I borrowed this on ebook from the library.

Thoughts: This was an intriguing read that moves at a deliberate pace. I enjoyed the near future subtly dystopian setting and the Lake Superior location (we recently bought a home next to Lake Superior and I love it up there!). The story is mainly driven by two things: (1) will Rainy make it to the mysterious island and find his wife and (2) will Rainy escape the evil men that are after him.

Rainy and his wife are scraping by in northern Minnesota in a small town on Lake Superior. The world isn’t what it used to be under the current political system. Young people are being forced to sign prolonged contracts with corporations that work them like slaves with very little rights, society is divided into the Astronauts (those with huge amounts of money) and everyone else, women are no longer safe to travel on their own as kidnappings and trafficking run rampant. However, Rainy and his wife have a good thing going on. Rainy plays in a band, his wife owns a book shop, and life is pretty much decent. Then, a young man asks to rent the spare room in their house and this leads to a catastrophic chain of events that has Rainy fleeing his home on an old sailboat into the deadly waters of Lake Superior.

I loved the subtly of the dystopian elements of the future here. There was a no major apocalypse that happened; there was just a slow slide of basic human rights and education that landed the United States in such a rough place. Well, it’s a good place for the ultra-rich and a horrible place for everyone else.

The story has aspects of survival to it but also spends time discussing and contrasting the beauty and horror of life in general. Lake Superior can be an amazingly beautiful place but also a deadly one. The same can be said for the people Rainy runs in to on his travels. Some are generous and kind and uplifting, and some want to kill him and thrive on human misery. You can’t help but contrast a lot of things here with what the United States is facing moving forward. There is mention of a buffoon president and laws put in place that benefit the rich and victimize the poor. There is a background of an increasingly illiterate population and people being coerced into making political decisions based on flash and not substance. This is all in the background and not the main purpose of the story, but it points to a grim possible future.

I also really enjoyed Rainy’s relationship with the young girl he rescues from a bad situation. Together, they make each other’s lives better and together they work to find peace in a world gone wrong. It’s a beautifully written story.

My only issues with this book are fairly small. At times, it moves very slow. Also, it has that unfinished feeling to it that a lot of dystopian/post-apocalyptic books suffer from. I also personally chose a poor time to read this because I was reading it during the US 2024 presidential election and finished it the day after the election results came out. I think that amplified the political background in this book and made me hope that this isn’t an eerily accurate representation of the nation’s path forward.

My Summary (4/5): Overall I enjoyed this. It is beautiful and thought-provoking. I always enjoy books that find beauty and kindness in bleak circumstances. This book does an excellent job of contrasting beauty and kindness with ugliness and hate. It gives an eerily plausible look at the path the United States could be slowly sliding down but also gives hope that in that new era there will still be enlightment and kindness. I do plan on picking up more of Enger’s books in the future, but for now am leaning towards less heavy books while I try to work my way through my feelings of disappointment with the decisions our nation is making.