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Life Out of Order

by Audrey Niffenegger

A life unfolding across time and virtual worlds

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AlbakiReads Editorial

A life unfolding across time and virtual worlds

Alba DeTamble shares her father’s rare Chrono-Displacement Disorder, slipping unpredictably across decades and encountering a future she cannot change. Her effort to build a steady life with Zach unfolds alongside a community of artists and activists responding to an unstable society. The story spans dystopian Chicago and a digital museum devoted to forgotten memories and artifacts, curated by Alba’s mysterious stepsister, Isadora. A shifting set of perspectives connects these elements through questions of memory, technology, art, and mutual care, bringing private family ties into a wider speculative landscape.

Good fit for readers who enjoy

  • For readers interested in speculative fiction involving time displacement and virtual reality.
  • For readers who enjoy stories combining family relationships with art, activism, and community.
  • For readers drawn to dystopian settings and questions about memory and technology.

Themes

Time displacementVirtual reality and memoryFamily relationshipsArt and communityActivism in an unstable society

Based on publisher information and book metadata.

Book overview

"GRACEFUL, COMPLICATED, SATISFYING." -BONNIE GARMUS, AUTHOR OF LESSONS IN CHEMISTRY

The multi-million copy bestselling author of The Time Traveler's Wife returns with an exhilarating speculative story set in a dystopian future where virtual reality and real life converge.

Alba DeTamble has never lived a life in order. Born with the same rare Chrono-Displacement Disorder as her father Henry, she slips unpredictably through decades, haunted by the secrets of a future she can witness but cannot change. As Alba strives to maintain a normal life with Zach, her safe, supportive anchor, she forms a tight-knit community of artists and activists who fight to take care of each other in an increasingly unstable world.

At once intimate and expansive, Life Out of Order plunges readers into a world of Niffenegger's dazzling imagination: from the riot-torn streets of a dystopian Chicago, to a digital museum for forgotten memories and lost artifacts. Curating this ever-expanding museum is Isadora, Alba's mysterious stepsister and an unsettling presence in their family - whose fate may be intertwined with Alba's in more dangerous ways than she knows.

Told through a kaleidoscope of perspectives, the story moves through a boundless, unfolding universe of virtual reality, skimming the wildest reaches of technology and our natural world. The result is a testament to the power of art and community to sustain us in these fractured times--and an epic tale that's set to define an entirely new genre in a way only Niffenegger can.
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