I really liked this, maybe better than Finna iirc. It's hopeful to imagine that corporate greed and stupidity contains the seeds of its own destruction and replacement by better and more interesting forms of life.... ( )

I was not expecting another book in the Finna universe, but I was certainly delighted to discover that there was one! I loved Finna SO MUCH that I really didn't see how this book was going to compare, but I loved this one as well!

Finna basically starts with "Fucking Derek," and here in Defekt, we get to finally meet Derek, the model employee to Ava's walking disaster. Derek seems to have almost no needs, and seems to exist entirely to please, but it seems that he is somehow skating on thin ice with management as well?

But of course, this is Finna-verse, so the inhumanity of our capitalist employment landscape turns out to be literally inhumane. Or at least, very very weird. Furniture starts coming to life, there are clones and parallel universes... wait. That is also all to be expected with a Finna-verse! I guess the close are new.

I loved Derek SO HARD. The weirdness of it all, the politics and the heart of it all? Were so up my alley. Cipri is a gift. ( )

Finna and Defekt are books #1 and #2 in the LitenVerse series by Nino Cipri. Novella length books, they are both fantasies set in an alternate timeline, where most of the action takes place in and around a Swedish big box home store called LitenVärld (in an obvious reference to Ikea). I listened to the audiobooks of both novellas, checked out through Libby from my local library.

Defekt has a timeline that slightly overlaps Finna, but centers on another employee of the Chicago LitenVärld named Derek. He’s an odd duck. An overly loyal employee, he lives in a shipping container at the end of the parking lot. Derek is plagued by feelings of inadequacy and of not belonging but he takes tremendous pride in his work and the praise that comes from his manager. One day he develops a weird throat infection, and, with some prompting from Jules, determines that he’s due a sick day and calls off from work.

This does not sit well with the manager, who assigns Derek to an overnight inventory of the store, staffed by an offsite team. Suddenly he's face to face with employees who all seem to be clones - of him. To complicate matters they aren’t really doing an inventory, but are exterminating “defective” pieces of furniture and household items among those that LitenVärld has sourced from other universes (in a rush to the cost-of-goods bottom) - pieces that have the unfortunate tendency to come to life and attack people.

Defekt is told from Derek’s perspective, and Ramon De Ocampo brings just the right amount of company-nerd gusto to the narration.

On Cipri’s website they give the trigger warning for Defekt that it has “graphic violence against anthropomorphic furniture.” That should give you some idea of the keen and quirky sense of humor that animates both books. Both poke at capitalism and elevate marginalized folks.

Also on their website Cipro describes themselves this way - “Nino Cipri is a queer and trans/nonbinary writer, editor, and educator”, and both books have queer and transgender characters.

Of the two audiobooks I liked Defekt best. But both were lots of fun to listen to.

RATING: Four Stars ⭐⭐⭐⭐ ( )

Even stranger than the first book in this series, and a very enjoyable quick read. ( )

Did not love it in the same way as I did Finna, but it is a very different book. Much closer to horror, with true body horror mixed in, this is an interesting exploration of self and self awareness ( )