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3.51 AVERAGE
3.51 AVERAGE
challenging
dark
emotional
hopeful
reflective
sad
tense
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
dark
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
dark
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
challenging
dark
tense
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Surprisingly more uplifting and less violent than the movie, completely different story and told very well.
Not what I was expecting, having seen the movie very very man years ago. But still a good read. :)
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
reflective
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Argh. Struggling to score this book....
LOVED the concept. Wanted more exploration of the world and the culture the characters were living in.
Theo did my head in half of the time and I couldn't easily buy into his live story plotline.
The prose was beautiful but some of the writing of the plot was a bit sudden and I felt a bit like I couldn't believe characters would do x/y/z as there was no basis for it.
Honestly, it could have been 100 pages longer!
LOVED the concept. Wanted more exploration of the world and the culture the characters were living in.
Theo did my head in half of the time and I couldn't easily buy into his live story plotline.
The prose was beautiful but some of the writing of the plot was a bit sudden and I felt a bit like I couldn't believe characters would do x/y/z as there was no basis for it.
Honestly, it could have been 100 pages longer!
I got this at a book sale in 2010 and it took me until 2022 to get around to reading it. I've seen the trailer for the film version, and the more I read, the more I was struck by how the book didn't match my feel of the movie at all. The book is one of those literary fiction books with a premise that makes it "sort-of" sci-fi. I had a really hard time deciding how to tag it; post-apocalyptic, yes; dystopian? Well, maybe, but I'm not sure you can really consider it a dystopia when everyone knows they're just trying to keep themselves occupied until the human race dies off (to be a dystopia I feel like someone has to be trying to convince others it's a utopia).
What struck me about this book is how little I cared about the characters. The protagonist is extremely unsympathetic. He doesn't have much attachment to the people in his life and what there is is based mostly on sexual attraction. The other characters are pretty much cardboard cutouts, filling plot requirements with no real depth.
There is no advanced technology here, which almost made me not classify this as sci-fi. There's absolutely no explanation of how or why the lack of fertility happened (the characters don't know either) and no resolution of where things will go after the book is over. The main character managed to make himself even more unlikable on the last page and the whole thing left me very unsatisfied and with very little emotional attachment or reaction.
Even just watching the trailer it is clear the movie just took a few concepts and character names and abandoned the rest, with good reason.
What struck me about this book is how little I cared about the characters. The protagonist is extremely unsympathetic. He doesn't have much attachment to the people in his life and what there is is based mostly on sexual attraction. The other characters are pretty much cardboard cutouts, filling plot requirements with no real depth.
There is no advanced technology here, which almost made me not classify this as sci-fi. There's absolutely no explanation of how or why the lack of fertility happened (the characters don't know either) and no resolution of where things will go after the book is over. The main character managed to make himself even more unlikable on the last page and the whole thing left me very unsatisfied and with very little emotional attachment or reaction.
Even just watching the trailer it is clear the movie just took a few concepts and character names and abandoned the rest, with good reason.
Reading this now, in early 2021 when the first book of the novel is set, and woah how life could be different. Very very weird to think that in this world no child’s been born for 25 years so I wouldn’t have a brother or any cousins. I loved the concept, and the first chapter was so intriguing. Unfortunately for me though, whilst I don’t always need to like characters, it definitely helps when you’re reading from a character’s perspective to not care if he dies the majority of the time.
Book 2 was better in my opinion, I would give 1 a 2 star, and 2 a 4 star. It had more action and a cast of characters so it wasn’t all just in Theo’s head.
I think, for me, this is another classic that I loved the premise for, but didn’t completely jive with the execution.
⭐️⭐️⭐️ stars
Book 2 was better in my opinion, I would give 1 a 2 star, and 2 a 4 star. It had more action and a cast of characters so it wasn’t all just in Theo’s head.
I think, for me, this is another classic that I loved the premise for, but didn’t completely jive with the execution.
⭐️⭐️⭐️ stars
We live in an era right now where people are suddenly buying up as much classic dystopian fiction as they can get their hands on. Five years ago they read like the science-fiction they were intended to be; now they read like how-to manuals. A month ago Amazon sold out of all copies of Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four. I decided it was time to read P.D. James' Children of Men. I saw the film years ago when it came out, and it was beautiful. I only remember parts of the film, and I could see a similarity between it and the book, but I feel like the book varies from it quite a bit. This is a frightening look at what would happen if suddenly every man and women were infertile. In the book (written in 1992), the last child is born in 1995, and that becomes the Omega year. The book is set in 2021, when the youngest people on earth are 26 years old. Elementary schools and high schools are deserted. Toy manufacturers have gone out of business except for one specific kind: the ones who manufacture lifelike baby dolls so women can walk them around in prams and act like they actually have children. Elderly people are mandated by the government to participate in "Quietus" ceremonies, which are basically government-sanctioned mass suicides so the precious Omega generation won't have to take care of them. Rights have been taken away, a despotic Warden rules over England and keeps telling the people that of all of the countries in the world, theirs has boasted the fewest riots and civil unrest. But when a group of people decides to band together because of a big secret they are carrying — one that could change everything — they bring on board a lonely scholar who provides the point of view of the story. The story is compelling, fast-paced, and terrifying, and James has plotted out every detail of what the world might look like in the face of knowing the human population is coming to an end. And in the sense of people being silenced and fearful of saying things in case someone else might be watching who could hurt them, it suddenly seems very timely.