Thank you NetGalley and Zando/Crooked Media Books for an ARC in exchange for an honest review!

Mobility is a sort of Bildungsroman following Elizabeth Glenn—who goes by Bunny—as she spends a year in Azerbaijan, and then as she navigates adulthood (if you're wondering: this novel spans the 1990s to 2050). She is the daughter of a foreign service worker, she longs for Athens, she navigates a tricky adulthood that is marred by the recession of 2008 and a vague lack of ambition that seems to haunt her.

I didn't really know what to expect from this at first—it was a little challenging for me to get into at first, if only because teenage Bunny's concerns were so far from my own concerns at 15, but it ultimately picked up for me. There was something familiar about seeing Bunny stumble around her early twenties—though our ages differ by 14 years, I thought Kiesling did a good job at capturing the tumultuous nature of feeling kind of lost, especially when people around you are making moves. Where this book really shines is its interiority; Bunny can be a frustrating character to follow, in part because she rarely feels a tug of ambition and tends to skew towards a very specific brand of feminism. I think it's still a fascinating portrait of her mental landscape, and it's interesting to see how her experiences and the people she meets change her for better and for worse. It's an odd little novel in that it meanders quite a bit and things mostly happen to Bunny instead of Bunny driving the action and yet it remains interesting. Bunny is feckless and adrift, and yet she still manages to climb her way through the oil industry. Mobility reads fairly quickly, but sitting with the text for a little does help the story shine. There's a lot to chew on here, especially about capitalism and complicity and how the contexts of our lives play into our personal politics.

A stunningly written coming-of-age story set against a geopolitical backdrop of the energy and oil industry. As we follow Bunny from her teen years into adulthood we see her navigate the internal conflict of her desire for personal comfort against the ethics of what she knows to be right in a capitalist world. She is afraid of climate change... but she also wants to make a decent living.

I read about 40 pages slowly and then devoured this one - Bunny hit exactly right and I loved the story of her finding her way in life. I want to go to Greece. I got a little interested in petrochemicals. My favorite book by Ms. Kiesling thus far.

I love novels in which the author includes details that indicate that she really "gets" the character in her moment in time. The story was not at all ABOUT hair removal, but marking the passage of time with references TO different methods of bikini line maintenance was an incredible way of marking time and helped me relate to the character, even when our values or worldviews strayed from each other. The novel is a journey through time, from Bunny's teen years abroad in the 90's to the US in the 2050's. Bunny was infinitely human, imperfect but loveable and likable. I cared what happened to her. I keep thinking about the book, refelcting on Kiesling's ability to situate social comentary on the scaffolding of the life of a very specific girl growing up and growing older with very specific, but generationaly recognizable experiences over time.

Mobility is a spell blinding story of Elizabeth "Bunny" Glenn - the regular 1990's teenager who happens to be growing up in Azerbaijan via her families' foreign service contracts. The story bounds far and wide as we grow up with Bunny. The story is endearing and the characters are intriguing. The brilliance is achieved in the message and the demonstration of how one woman's choices can clearly assist with leading us to a climate disaster. If you love a spanning novel, geopolitics and a bit of nostalgia, Mobility is not to be missed!
#Zando #Mobility #LydiaKiesling\

Mobility by Lydia Kiesling is about how coming of age in the 21st century is a matter of choosing what systems you’ll be complicit in, and how those choices define you. 10/10 would recommend.

Mobility begins in the late 90s with teenage Elizabeth, whom everybody calls Bunny. Her father is a diplomat in Azerbaijan and Bunny in many ways reflects the life of a teenager in the 90s, with a little more oil and politics thrown in. Being similar in age to Bunny, I related to her quickly. The book carries us through Bunny’w life until middle age. We see her try and figure out her way and then make a career in the oil business and a life for herself. Her past often pops up in her present, presenting different conflicts throughout. In many ways Climate Change and environmental issues are secondary characters, always present and impacting the narrative but often dismissed. The book was very interesting.
I received an ARC from NetGalley.

I wanted to enjoy this one but I found the plot, story, and characterizations hard to follow and not really resonate the best for me at times.