The Odyssey by Lara Williams

​   Oh, the possibilities. A high sea adventure, a cult…this book might have been excellent. Instead, in. decidedly less so fashion, it was hip. Think critical darling instead of something with a much easier (and more commercial) appeal. Mind you, normally I‘d appreciate that sort of thing – there’s plenty of sellouts peddling best-sellers out there, it’s nice to find something different – but, but this book was slightly too enamored with being different and it resulted in a dream-like dense nightmare-like spiral journey of a not especially compelling protagonist that even high seas and cults were unable to save.
     Or, to go in more detail, this is a story of a woman of an uncertain age, an alcoholic who left her adoring spouse to go work on a luxury cruise ship. The ship is a grand and self-contained affair featuring every amenity, including your friendly neighborhood cult the woman ends up in. The cult follows a Japanese idea that all things come from and go into nothingness and, to this end, the woman has to submit to a variety of trials, from intense talk therapy to having her finger cut off.  Yes, you read that right, her finger. And once she mastered herself, she can advance to becoming a master.
     There are some onboard associations she has, friendships, jobs, and every so often she goes to the land and has drunken hazy adventures there, but that’s about it. The protagonist essentially spends her time not so much building a life but avoiding it and, specifically, avoiding going back to the life she had before, on land. There’s nothing quite like traditional three act structure and the untraditional appeal of this novel is somewhat tough to discern. The title presupposes a grand journey of self-discovery. In a way, I suppose, it is, for the character, it just isn’t especially interesting or engaging to read about. But, to its credit, it reads very quickly. Thanks Netgalley.