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3.4 AVERAGE
3.4 AVERAGE
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
N/A
Loveable characters:
N/A
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
The writing is lyrical and poetic. Paints a strong picture of a disaster we are one climate catastrophe away from.
If you want to experience the road of Parable of the Sower, but can’t handle the violence this book is a good replacement. The dread and what exist betweens the gaps might be just as horrifying.
If you want to experience the road of Parable of the Sower, but can’t handle the violence this book is a good replacement. The dread and what exist betweens the gaps might be just as horrifying.
adventurous
dark
hopeful
reflective
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
emotional
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
I need to reread this. Totally engrossing
This was an interesting experiment, I think, and some parts of it worked – there were little passages here and there that I marked as lovely writing. But other parts of it were incredibly pretentious (I have beef with anyone who uses the word 'is-ness') and while I'm sure the elliptical vagueness was a deliberate stylistic choice, it didn't really work for me. I suspect that it's the kind of book that wants to be read multiple times, and yet it really isn't engaging enough to warrant a reread. The cover is pretty though, so, yay?
emotional
hopeful
mysterious
reflective
sad
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
Here's what I really liked about Megan Hunter's lovely novella, The End We Start From:
1) it is committed to an elegant and suggestive prose style
2) it is formally taut, like a wound string held tight
3) it is thoughtful about an apocalypse and about what kinds of revelations are made
4) it is critical regarding the synoptic, panoptic, god-optic vision that every apocalypse ever adopts
5) it is resolute in focus on a mother's relationship with her new child
Here's what I didn't really like:
1) buried under the very critical consciousness here is a deep spring of nostalgia for the atavistic human race that is a liberal fantasy and that doesn't actually reveal much
2) this is a good novella, but not I think a great one. More books should take notes. But it's not something that I'd be keen to read again. Something's a little off – not sure what it is.
Get it from the library. Breeze through it on a rainy day. Feel feelings. Return it.
Live, waiting for the flood and the fury to begin.
1) it is committed to an elegant and suggestive prose style
2) it is formally taut, like a wound string held tight
3) it is thoughtful about an apocalypse and about what kinds of revelations are made
4) it is critical regarding the synoptic, panoptic, god-optic vision that every apocalypse ever adopts
5) it is resolute in focus on a mother's relationship with her new child
Here's what I didn't really like:
1) buried under the very critical consciousness here is a deep spring of nostalgia for the atavistic human race that is a liberal fantasy and that doesn't actually reveal much
2) this is a good novella, but not I think a great one. More books should take notes. But it's not something that I'd be keen to read again. Something's a little off – not sure what it is.
Get it from the library. Breeze through it on a rainy day. Feel feelings. Return it.
Live, waiting for the flood and the fury to begin.
reflective
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
This book wasn’t my cup of tea. I gave it three stars for creativity of concept and technical writing chops. It’s admirable the author was able to communicate as much as she did with such a terse style. I may even try it myself as a creative writing exercise. As s reader, I needed more.
The End We Start From is a piece of impactful dystopian fiction which sees a family thrown into the unknown when London, and the surrounding areas are flooded and they must flee. Having just given birth to her first child, the narrator must work out how to keep... read the full review here: https://www.amybucklesbookshelf.co.uk/2019/09/the-end-we-start-from-book-review/
|3.5 Stars|
A family is on the run to save themselves and their newborn from the flood that has swallowed most of the country. With the backdrop being London, the story offers us country lanes and cities that have been reduced to nothing. Passing from camp to camp, looking for food and shelter, they start to lose people. One by one. There are fights for survival and food. Fight to eliminate the competitor because the times are desperate and the resources are few. Will they be able to face the difficulties and survive nature’s wrath?
An extremely short and fast read, the narration is blunt but managed to leave me wanting for more. The writing style reminds me of the running notes we all tend to make in our personal diaries/journal. For starters, the characters have names that have been reduced to the first alphabet. So we have character names as R, Z, C, H etc. The book isn’t detailed but metaphors have been used to covey the severity of the situation. The tiny details one notices, the hope we all cling to for survival has been penned down to perfection.
Sometimes its difficult to catch hold of the events/thoughts the author is trying to convey but those are rare. Its an emotional and touching ride through the hardships the family had to face. Not just one family, but all those homeless people trying to survive and give a better life to their kids.
The protagonist is a woman who stays quiet, notices almost everything and clings to her newborn for survival. Her days pass noticing all the tiny changes that the baby undergoes as time passes. She loses her family during this process of evacuation but stays quiet and never asks why/how. Even when she does, she is denied answers.
The End We Start From has left me agitated and terrified with those subtle sentences and metaphors that carry the dead weight of destruction and loss. The book is full of promises and proves that hope is the only constant companion in the catastrophic dystopian world the author created for all of us.
A family is on the run to save themselves and their newborn from the flood that has swallowed most of the country. With the backdrop being London, the story offers us country lanes and cities that have been reduced to nothing. Passing from camp to camp, looking for food and shelter, they start to lose people. One by one. There are fights for survival and food. Fight to eliminate the competitor because the times are desperate and the resources are few. Will they be able to face the difficulties and survive nature’s wrath?
An extremely short and fast read, the narration is blunt but managed to leave me wanting for more. The writing style reminds me of the running notes we all tend to make in our personal diaries/journal. For starters, the characters have names that have been reduced to the first alphabet. So we have character names as R, Z, C, H etc. The book isn’t detailed but metaphors have been used to covey the severity of the situation. The tiny details one notices, the hope we all cling to for survival has been penned down to perfection.
Sometimes its difficult to catch hold of the events/thoughts the author is trying to convey but those are rare. Its an emotional and touching ride through the hardships the family had to face. Not just one family, but all those homeless people trying to survive and give a better life to their kids.
The protagonist is a woman who stays quiet, notices almost everything and clings to her newborn for survival. Her days pass noticing all the tiny changes that the baby undergoes as time passes. She loses her family during this process of evacuation but stays quiet and never asks why/how. Even when she does, she is denied answers.
The End We Start From has left me agitated and terrified with those subtle sentences and metaphors that carry the dead weight of destruction and loss. The book is full of promises and proves that hope is the only constant companion in the catastrophic dystopian world the author created for all of us.