Scan barcode
ifoundcallie's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.75
Very reminiscent of Stephen King, particularly “Under the Dome”. If you liked that, you’ll love this. For people SOLELY looking for a thriller or commentary on race/social class, turn elsewhere…this book intentionally subverts the expectations of those genres.
I love how the omniscient narrator stingily portioned out information, which shamefully left me feeling the same desperate NEED for information that the book was critiquing!
There are a few times in this book where the writing could use some trimming/adjusting towards purpose—the heavy emphasis on certain carnal images felt self-righteous and cheap for the rest of the story. Honestly, this is the only thing that keeps this book from being a “perfect” book for me. This pitfall is reminiscent of Stephen King’s writing, again, which makes sense knowing that the author reread Pet Semetary while editing this book. I can only read so many descriptions of bored and worn out married couples “tumbling into the only comfort: of flesh smacking against flesh” or teenage male characters and their detailed descriptions of “spit-in-hand, spurting release”, or adult men who are dumbstruck by their unexpected “large load of vitality and youth long gone”. I felt disappointed every time the book swung back to these tropes, faithfully. Yawn.
There are many passages/chapters in this novel that blew me away and can easily stand on their own as brilliant pieces of art. I would love to sit and analyze some of the turn-of-phrase, allusions, and imagery handpicked by this intelligent author. I was giddy with annotation, and this book rewards you for paying attention to these nuances of craft. Overall, I’m so glad I was recommended this book. It itched an “am I spiraling and paranoid or is the world ending” scratch that is often not done well.
Bravo, Rumaan Alam.
Graphic: Body horror, Confinement, Blood, and Pandemic/Epidemic
Moderate: Alcoholism, Cursing, Racism, Sexual content, Excrement, Vomit, Alcohol, War, and Classism
Minor: Body shaming, Cancer, Child death, Fatphobia, Genocide, Gore, Gun violence, Hate crime, Homophobia, Incest, Misogyny, Sexism, Sexual violence, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Torture, Violence, Xenophobia, Dementia, Religious bigotry, Medical trauma, Car accident, Suicide attempt, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Lesbophobia, and Colonisation
kelseyland's review against another edition
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
Graphic: Body horror, Sexual content, Blood, and Vomit
Moderate: Alcoholism, Confinement, and Racism
wai's review against another edition
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
1.75
Now, there is a mystery here, and it never gets solved. Clay and Amanda are white, fairly upper middle class parents with their teenage children, Archie (15) and Rose (13). The only reason I point out the ages is because Archie is lamented for his burgeoning manhood whereas Rose is treated so childishly that I assumed she was 7/8 for at least 50 some pages until they finally say her age. The infantilization of women blah blah blah. They are renting out a reclusive summer house near the beach in Long Island from G.H. and Ruth, a black older couple who are just a bit more upper middle class than Clay and Amanda. Cue mentions of race and classism and such. They are so one dimensional and overt and nothing comes of it that it feels pointless. But no, perhaps that's the point - as they lose internet and cell phone access, they become lost puppies in the wilderness, useless and incompetent. Oh, what a scathing critique of our "addiction" to "The Internet(TM)". Oh, now society is crumbling! We're in shambles! There's a war going on involving fighter planes I guess! Everyone is selfish, uncaring for their neighbors, Humans Are The Real Demons All Along, etc.etc. This feels like a distillation of the majority of "Boomer Comics" that are not only cringey but inaccurate.
There are only brief moments of clarity, such as oblique mentions to very real issues, such as disabled people who rely on ventilators and other machinery dying within minutes of a widespread blackout (as had happened in California when power companies scheduled blackouts without allowing for evacuation time), or the deaths of so many prisoners abandoned in the wake of the situation (something that happens during every major natural disaster). But rather than putting forward a critical analysis of these types of issues, it's all just distilled down to Why Humans Are Useless And Selfish And Evil. It's treated shallowly to underscore the shallowness of the comfortable upper middle class, obviously!!! Sorry, but that's just lazy writing. You can't carry out that trope without giving the readers some kind of buy in to you doing this deliberately and for a point, but there is none of that here. And quite frankly, I think the time for that trope has past. It's too oblique and too uncertain for the reader.
Anyways, in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, this book frustrates. It's unendingly cynical without a single reprieve. It reeks of every Reddit bro that self describes as a libertarian/truth seeker and that quote retweets your social justice tweet like "Ah, but I see you tweeted from an iPhone! You participate in the system! Ergo you are just as much at fault as those that you criticize!!! I am very smart." Every other sentence is an analogy to some weird sexual thing, like "she looked for her child in disbelief that they could be missing as if she was looking for her ear or her clitoris" shut UP. If the world was truly pointless and the only pleasures are sex and death, then why are there still so many good people ? Why do we keep hearing stories of people helping each other just because ? Every day someone makes the choice to buy a cup of coffee for a stranger or take care of their groceries when their card is declined. There will always be good people and it's not smart or witty or cool to write 241 pages of whiny cynical garbage about why we all suck deep down inside, especially during a global pandemic that continues to show us the full spectrum of the bad AND the good within our own humanity. This book is depressing and I do not recommend it.
Moderate: Alcoholism, Sexual content, Blood, and Vomit
Characters have sexual thoughts and there are a few sex scenes throughout, but not as graphic as it could be. The adult characters drink heavily throughout including to the point of sickness, but are not explicitly seen as having an issue with alcohol. One character becomes ill, including vomiting, coughing up blood, and losing teeth.