Finna is a weird and intimate novella following a recently broken-up couple, Ava and Jules, who work at pretend Ikea; the pair find a wormhole in the store and have to go on an adventure through it to find a missing old woman on the behest of their manager. This book is wacky and queer and is about anti-capitalism and growing as a person.
I am very torn in my feelings about this book. There are many things I really enjoyed and just as many things that I wasn't a huge fan of.
Starting out with the anti-capitalism theme, I thought this was a weak point in the book. I am sure there are folks who would strongly disagree with me, but I just felt like it was so surface level even for a novella. In a book that is under 140 pages, there were two times where a character talked about their job and then said "capitalism" as if that is witty or incisive. I liked the parts of the book that talked about the way the corporation was a bad actor, and right at the end, it is tied to a structural issue, but this is done very loosely. I feel like if the characters didn't basically say "ugh, capitalism," the broader implications of the anti-capitalist theme might not have been that clear. Or maybe it would have been clear, but it might have felt narrower than it was intended to. I wanted more from this aspect of the story.
Something that I think was done incredibly well was the core relationship between Ava and Jules. I loved the pace Nino Cipri chose to slowly unfurl how their relationship came to an end. I am going to talk about the elements of this story I found a bit dull later, but this part of the story had me hooked. I loved the back and forth about if this story was going to be a complete post mortem or if it was going to be about forging a new relationship. I was so interested to see how this breakup came to happen; so many of the assumptions I made about the relationship, in the beginning, were shown to be incorrect or incomplete. This is an incredibly short book, and it manages to fit so much history and character growth within.
My biggest negative with this book was that I was just sort of bore while reading. This book is so short, and I am sure some people will be riveted by it; and it had aspects that reminded me of books that are my absolute favorite (The Starless Sea specifically), but I just wasn't captivated. I think it is because of the very short nature of the book paired with the whimsy of the fantasy/science fiction element I just wasn't very interested in it, which is obviously highly personal.
I didn't like the way the grandma story ended in parallel with how the main story ended. It felt like it was saying some people are replaceable, just not this person. It felt very dismissive and was certainly the aspect I wanted more on, especially from the granddaughter.
I am finishing writing this review almost a week after I read the book, mostly because I don't know how to write about how I just feel neutrally, mostly about this book. I do think the sequel to this book sounds really interesting, so I might be reading that soon! So I felt very middling on Finna, but I am still interested in reading more of Cipri's work.
I gave this book 3 stars on Goodreads and The StoryGraph.
