What readers think of I Cheerfully Refuse, plus links to write your own review.

I don’t know how to recover from this.

The story is set in America a few decades from now. The oligarchy won long ago and we are presented with a world of their making. All government services have been turned over to them. If it can’t turn a profit, they abandon it. NASA, libraries, infrastructure maintenance, only remembered in the distant past. Drugs that induce compliance. One drug that produces a peaceful euphoria and allows for a person, or large groups of people, to “search for a better place”, is eagerly sought for. Bookstores are illegal and being illiterate is boasted of among the compliant and/or deceived. But small communities are depicted in which citizens have turned to each other for support. In those communities trust is what holds things together. They use cash among themselves, though cash is illegal. They barter, trade and just plain give. It is a world beyond hope, yet two things are true: these small communities of light may be truer to the best of humanity than what they were before, and there is hope. There is hope. But make no mistake, while this world brings out the best in humanity it also brings out the worst and the worst most often seems to outweigh and outmaneuver the best.

These evidences of societal collapse are not mentioned as facts but are simply and naturally woven into the story, and the story is so riveting the casual reader might miss these details. So, this isn’t a story about a dystopian world; it is a story set within a dystopian world. For a frightening yet hopeful look at what our world could be coming too and the ways we might navigate it, you won’t find anything better than I Cheerfully Refuse.

Before I read a review of Leif Enger's latest novel I was completely unaware of his work! I am thrilled to have finally discovered him and now simply have to read his previous books! "I Cheerfully Refuse" is a keeper, which means I must purchase it and add it to my collection (I borrowed it from the library)!

It is masterfully written, eloquent and will resonate with the reader for a long, long time! Love and loss and grief and searching and a dystopian landscape filled with wonderful souls and horribly cruel people and so much more. I am not going to share details, this is a work you need to consume with an open mind and enjoy the experience.

One of many quotes I found worthy of being embedded in my memory: "What scares me is the notion we are all one rotten moment, one crushed hope or hollow stomach from stuffing someone blameless in a cage."

Who needs to read this book, well-everyone, but especially those who love literary fiction!

Leif Enger wrote two of the best books I ever read: PEACE LIKE A RIVER and VIRGIL WANDER. So I expected that I CHEERFULLY REFUSE would be another winner. But I didn't get it.

This book confused me. It's mostly doom and gloom in the near future. But it felt like Enger was trying to make a point; I just could not tell what the point was. At the same time, though, I was enjoying the way he writes, his sly humor and his remarks that were so like those in his books I loved.

I CHEERFULLY REFUSE starts out in Minnesota and ends up in Canada by way of Lake Superior. The main character, Rainy, meets bad guys all along the way but meets good guys in Canada.

Is that a message? If so, Enger would be insulting most of his readers, and I doubt he would do that. I'm just searching for a point.

Another possible point could be his "astronauts." These were the bad guys who made life hell for everyone else because they had most of the money and, therefore, all of the power. Nowadays I hear lots of complaints about the dangerous oligarchy we live in. Could that be what this is, a complaint about oligarchy?

Whatever the point is with I CHEERFULLY REFUSE, I did enjoy Enger's sentences, i.e., I love the way he writes. He's working on another book, and I know I'll want to read it.