An Indelible Day | Book Review

Thank you, Cairo Marques, for sending me the eBook of An Indelible Day, in exchange for my honest review.

An Indelible Day is a short story following one morning in C's life. During the day, he has three different encounters: one with the receptionist at his therapist's office, the second with his therapist, and the third and final with his first love. We see these meetings and how each one leaves a lasting impact on his life.

Even though short stories aren't usually my jam, I decided to pick this book up because it sounded really intriguing and the author is a fellow Brazilian. I really enjoyed the writing and how C's story was told, but I couldn't really connect to the main character due to the small length of the book. As much as I appreciated what Marques was aiming to do, I feel like it wasn't effective with me personally.

The three encounters are very brief but I wanted to see more of how they impacted the main character's life, even if the story was still contained within a single day. Another thing that not necessarily annoyed me but it did catch my attention was that the main character's name was John but he was referred to as C. I get not mentioning a main character's name as a way to depersonalise them and make them more approachable and relatable to the audience (Fleabag and Cherry are great examples of this being done wonderfully). However, if this was the aim of calling the main character by a letter, I don't get why we got to know his actual name. Similarly, if that wasn't the aim, why not call him John throughout the book? I get this might seem nitpicky, but when a book has less than 30 pages, you kind of have nowhere else to look.

I gave this book 2.5/5 ⭐️. I really enjoyed the writing and thought it was very immersive, and I don't regret reading it. I wish that I could've connected more to the main character's feelings though. That's mostly why I don't often reach for short stories (and prefer series over standalones) because I like to spend a lot of time with my characters, and I usually need this time to connect to their stories and see myself in them. I think that if you enjoy this format and this book sounds intriguing to you, you should give it a try. Firstly, it took me only 20 minutes to read it, and secondly, you might get the connection I couldn't as it's a completely personal matter.

Love,

N.

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