Raya is a songwriter turned medical student who has lost her way in life, going through everyday on auto pilot knowing she must be not herself but the promise of who someone else was meant to be. Q is a painter who has been more than marginally successful, but due to a medical condition he is losing his sight. On the day of Q's last showing he and Raya both board a subway only to find themselves on The Elsewhere Express, a train that can make you forget all of your worries while giving you your purpose back.
It is always difficult to describe one of Sotto Yambao's books because they aren't just words on a page, they are truly an experience, something that you have to go through yourself to understand, so I am going to try to and I am going to fail miserably but I'm pretty okay with that.
This book is about a couple of things but mainly grief and guilt. How both of those things can eat you alive until there is virtually nothing left of who you were before they took over. Sotto Yambao takes us a all of the stages of these two emotions using this beautiful (yet quite honestly kinda terrifying) train as a metaphor. Throughout the book Raya's inability to let go of both of these emotions is almost physically painful to read. She never truly makes progress until the book is almost finished and because of this she causes pain to those around her yes but herself as well. She makes horrible decisions times and again and it is honestly angering at many points but it also just makes sense. It feels like Raya believes that all she has left is this grief and guilt and she's afraid to let it go. Until she meets Q of course, but even then he is just not enough. And I think that's where this really hurts, is that it is so very clear very early on what is actually going on but going through it confirming it and seeing the why and the show of it is simply heartbreaking. Raya wants this to be about Q because then she doesn't have to face herself. Raya is so very simple and yet incredibly complex and this story is all about her journey as she navigates her own maze. I could tell you all how this ended and it wouldn't even be a spoiler because it's not about that at all. I'm not going to but keep that in mind while reading it.
If you read Water Moon you are probably here for the magical worlds Sotto Yambao creates and let me, tell you, you will not be disappointed here. Not even the tiniest bit. To say the Elsewhere Express is magical is an understatement, to say that it is a reminder of Miyazaki films for me at least does not do justice to what she has created here, because Miyazaki, has created nothing like this. The descriptions of beautiful train cars that contain entire beaches or a whole lagoon are absolutely stunning, however, that's not what makes the train amazing. At least not in my mind. The Train is the physical representation of Raya's inability to move forward from her grief and her guilt, as the story goes on it almost becomes like a fun house where everything is just a little bit off. By the end of the book and the reveal of Q and Raya's whole story it very much seems like it's been on fire the whole time and all of that beautiful descriptions can't save you from very feeling very much trapped in a nightmare, that you have no control over and you just want Raya to finally release herself so you can be released.
When she does finally release you, the ending is as beautifully painful as the journey was. I cried and I laughed, and I was so very happy for Raya and Q.
There's more there's so much more here and I wish I was a little better at putting words together to describe this but there isn't. As I said earlier Sotto Yambao doesn't write books she creates experiences ones that I don't think any of us view exactly the same way when we read her books. Certainly, we all take away some things that are similar, but her books have a way to them that quite honestly, I cannot think of another writer who I can compare her too. If you told me that she was a god of literature I would believe you without any hesitation.
As always thanks to NetGalley and Del Rey for the eArc!
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