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Graphic: Child death, Death, Gun violence, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Violence, Sexual harassment
Graphic: Adult/minor relationship, Child death, Gun violence, Infertility, Infidelity, Miscarriage, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Slavery, Medical content, Trafficking, Kidnapping, Religious bigotry, Murder, Pregnancy, Pandemic/Epidemic
Moderate: Animal death, Biphobia, Cursing, Drug use, Homophobia, Pedophilia, Sexual content, Suicide, Abortion, Outing
Minor: Cancer, Blood, Death of parent, Alcohol
Graphic: Adult/minor relationship, Child death, Death, Drug use, Genocide, Gun violence, Homophobia, Incest, Infertility, Miscarriage, Misogyny, Pedophilia, Physical abuse, Racial slurs, Racism, Rape, Self harm, Sexism, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Slavery, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Terminal illness, Torture, Violence, Xenophobia, Medical content, Trafficking, Kidnapping, Grief, Religious bigotry, Medical trauma, Suicide attempt, Murder, Pregnancy, Sexual harassment, War, Pandemic/Epidemic
Post-apocalyptic fic centered on an OB/GYN nurse who is one of the .02% of women to survive a global pandemic.
I’ve read a fair amount of apocalyptic fiction. The premise of this one intrigued me and I was picturing a strong queer female lead charging through the wasteland sprinkling birth control around like fairy dust. The story doesn’t go quite like that. I don’t have any qualms with the MC, she’s a pretty normal survivor who gets through with some gumption and luck. Because the survival rate of humanity is so low, particularly for women, she doesn’t get much opportunity to provide aid to other women (or to engage in any queer relationships).
Strong points for me: concept, overall readability, and the willingness to envision and portray a realistic possibility of what life could look like for women after the collapse of a patriarchal world. I saw many reviews that found the brutality of many of the remaining men to be “unrealistic” - IMO these reviewers must either be men or women who are as sheltered and unaware as the character of Jodi from the book.
Weak points for me: inconsistency with voice/POV/tone, mediocre pacing, and what felt like lip service to diversity without real representation. The book is framed as a look backwards at the midwife’s journals as they’re being copied down. Within her journals are the journal entries and accounts of other people’s stories, as well as some moments of an omniscient narrator that is never explained. I can appreciate that the author wanted us to have more information than was available to the MC but the mish-mash of devices to convey all of this at times confused and distracted. I also found the voice of the other character's journal entries unconvincing and inconsistent.
The first third of the book kept me pretty engaged with quick pacing, and then we encounter The Mormons. As soon as MC mentioned she was in Utah I felt my eyes roll up into my brain because I sensed what was coming. This part dragged on for so long that I honestly wonder if this plot point was the author's original whole-book
concept. Not only does the story linger here for way too long without any clear purpose, the tone changes pretty dramatically and, IMO, not for the better. The concept of Hives is introduced and there's a lot of sex stuff that seemed out of pocket and weird. Not unrealistic for sex to be a component, but a lot of things that lower the like-ability and relatability of the supposedly queer, self-reliant, feminist MC. This portion of the book felt like it was a very personal subject for the author and it just didn't translate well to the story for me. The sex interludes were especially jarring after reading about all the SA in the first part. Again, I find it a realistic aspect of a post-apoc world but the setting and timing felt icky and just off. I was really ready to be done with this part of the story and it just kept going.
While I can appreciate having queer characters without the focus being on their queerness, I was still left feeling disappointed that we had to spend more time with the boring fucking Mormons than with the gay couple from the beginning of the book, and that the MC seems to really want us to know that she isn't straight but only shows interest in her lost man and a boring married man that she has nothing in common with whose wife just gave birth to a dead baby.
All of that said, as a debut novel, there’s definitely some good stuff here. Nothing groundbreaking or really fresh but still a fairly engaging story. I enjoyed the genre storytelling from a woman’s perspective. It was overall easy and quick to read and follow, and I will likely go ahead and check out the next installment to give it a try.
Graphic: Adult/minor relationship, Child death, Miscarriage, Rape, Sexism, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Suicide
Graphic: Child death, Confinement, Death, Domestic abuse, Gun violence, Infertility, Miscarriage, Misogyny, Physical abuse, Rape, Sexism, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Slavery, Suicide, Torture, Violence, Forced institutionalization, Trafficking, Abortion, Pregnancy, Sexual harassment
Graphic: Sexism, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Trafficking, Sexual harassment
Moderate: Child abuse, Infidelity, Miscarriage, Misogyny, Pedophilia, Physical abuse, Rape, Sexism, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Blood, Medical trauma, Murder, Pregnancy, War, Pandemic/Epidemic
I struggled with the book because of the negative perception of what humanity (particularly mankind) would turn into in this apocalyptic perception. I'm not saying it's inaccurate, but I would hope we'd do better. There was a bit of a heavy focus on sex at times, which wasn't particularly for me. Probably one of the more depressing dystopian books I've read but even so, I found it hard to put down. I enjoyed the read but I'm not sure I will pick up the follow ups in the series due to how dark the book is. I do applaud Elison's choice to have this book stand-alone and not ending on a cliffhanger. After I have some time and a palate cleanser read (or two), perhaps I will look into reading some of the others in the series. I'd be open to reading other books by this author, just maybe not ones as dark.
Would you read the next one in the series? Possibly, more likely if less dark.
Would you read something else by the author? Yes (see above)
Would you re-read this? Probably not, it was a bit too dark for me to truly enjoy it.
Graphic: Child abuse, Child death, Cursing, Death, Gore, Infertility, Infidelity, Misogyny, Pedophilia, Physical abuse, Rape, Sexism, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Slavery, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Violence, Medical content, Trafficking, Kidnapping, Grief, Medical trauma, Murder, Pregnancy, Sexual harassment, Injury/Injury detail, Pandemic/Epidemic
Graphic: Child abuse, Death, Gore, Gun violence, Infertility, Infidelity, Misogyny, Rape, Sexism, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Slavery, Suicide, Violence, Blood, Medical content, Trafficking, Kidnapping, Murder, Pregnancy, Gaslighting, Sexual harassment, Injury/Injury detail, Pandemic/Epidemic
Moderate: Adult/minor relationship, Biphobia, Child abuse, Child death, Cursing, Death, Drug abuse, Drug use, Gore, Gun violence, Miscarriage, Pedophilia, Sexism, Toxic relationship, Vomit, Medical content, Grief, Gaslighting, Alcohol
Minor: Animal death, Biphobia, Child death, Gun violence, Miscarriage, Grief, Abortion, Fire/Fire injury, Abandonment, Alcohol
Graphic: Addiction, Child abuse, Cursing, Death, Gun violence, Incest, Infertility, Miscarriage, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Slavery, Suicide, Terminal illness, Torture, Violence, Vomit, Trafficking, Kidnapping, Abortion, Suicide attempt, Death of parent, Murder, Pregnancy, Sexual harassment, Pandemic/Epidemic