Tashan Mehta

A novel with the particular rhythms and cadence of a dream—and not someone solipsistically describing their dream to you the next day. You're in this one, you're there, you're dreaming it too. It could be a book of plain nonsense, with its dreamlike imagery and sheer, whimsical impossibilities, but instead it's got a whole plot (or really, several!) that hangs together, and it also has detailed lore and, like, a lot of academic essays about space whales, for huge nerds. I loved it.

This book left me reeling—in the best way.

Tashan Mehta has crafted a world so vivid, so immersive, and so original that it could only have been written today. Yet it speaks with a timeless awareness that makes the story feel eternal. At its heart, this is a tale of sisterhood—not rivalry, not conquest, but the aching, mythic pull to reunite.

Myung and Laleh live within the Whale of Babel, a universe unto itself. Laleh explores its interior mysteries, while Myung dreams of what lies show more beyond. When Myung leaves to discover the islands of Esi and Ojda, she uncovers another set of sisters and the secrets of the Whale itself.

This is high fantasy at its most poetic—where mythology doesn’t just guide the story, it transforms the reader. Mehta’s language is unconventional, lyrical, and arresting. It reads like a thought experiment and a half-remembered dream. It’s not a beach read. It’s not an airport book. It’s a book you live through—and one you’ll want to revisit to uncover its deeper truths.

This is a story of discovery, loss, redemption, and reunion. A celebration of madness, myth, and meaning. And for me? A five-star experience. show less

This story is a great many things. It’s inventive and languid. Heartfelt and bracing.

Here is a story of world-building.
Of sisters so intrinsically bound in loss though, intuitively, it should be known you can’t crack the sky without recolouring its sunset.

Beware what you seek in this tale. You might be unable to set down what’s found within you. Though you will deeply long for its driving impulse. Madness… The need to expand all there is. To build what it reveals to you. There’s show more an insatiable longing to make it real. Explorable.

Even if it changes you.
Especially then.

This book, is a grand myth told via reading a scrapbook by candlelight. One made up of a single page with everything pasted layer upon layer atop it. With many, many contributors… Not to rewrite what was. But to be remembered.

As they see themselves.
(End of November 2025 | Date Unknown) show less

This novel is certainly original. It’s part ayahuasca trip, part fever dream, part cosmic meditation on memory, time, and the universe. Sound becomes visual, reality unravels, and everything is anything. On that front, it earns full marks for imagination, but very few in terms of coherence. For the first half, I felt untethered, with little sense of story, setting, or even how to conceptualize what was unfolding. It leaned so far into the fantastical that it was overwhelming. I struggled show more to grasp why the characters mattered beyond a vague gesture toward sisterhood. When it nested itself in a story-within-a-story, I was fine. I never felt transported or invested, only confused, persisting in hopes of a reveal that never really came. It is for someone, not me.

Thanks to NetGalley and DAW for providing access to this book. show less