Take a photo of a barcode or cover
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
hopeful
inspiring
reflective
sad
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death, Gun violence, Suicide, Terminal illness, Toxic relationship, Violence, Blood, Medical content, Murder, Abandonment, Pandemic/Epidemic
dark
hopeful
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
I honestly wasn’t ready for this book to end when it did. I wanted to spend more time in this world and with these characters.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death, Pandemic/Epidemic
Moderate: Adult/minor relationship, Alcoholism, Gun violence, Infidelity, Suicide, Kidnapping, Injury/Injury detail
Minor: Rape
adventurous
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death, Suicide, Pandemic/Epidemic
adventurous
dark
emotional
hopeful
reflective
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
A haunting, somewhat bittersweet book about life after a global pandemic wipes out a good 98% of humanity (which becomes somewhat harsher in hindsight after going through the debacle that was Covid, but I digress). The writing was tight, I have to say. Poetic and meaningful, and the jumps back and forth that we got timeline-wise actually seemed to make sense to me. I'm also just a sucker for stories that deal with how humans can band together (or vice versa) in times of great strife, as well as speculative fiction about post-apocalyptic scenarios, and the main characters being part of a traveling symphony of performers just managed to scratch some itch within me to a satisfying degree. I'd honestly love to see that subject matter handled in more post-apocalyptic stories. You're telling me there's simply no performance art to be found anywhere after society collapses? No way for people to just take their minds off of how shitty their situation is even for a couple of hours? I call humbug.
Rating it a bit lower because there were certain plot points that didn't end up being as well-developed as I thought they could be--what about these "ferals" that we keep hearing about, are they crazed from the illness or something else, and what the heck happened outside of America throughout this entire societal collapse, and are there larger settlements outside of this very particular region that we deal with in the book, and how exactly are they managing to cultivate food without certain technological measures? Some characters felt rather woefully underdeveloped as well, and I'm sorry, but the identity of who the cult leader more than likely was was a twist I saw coming from a mile away.
Still, it was a pretty solid book. I look forward to reading more from this author sometime in the future.
Rating it a bit lower because there were certain plot points that didn't end up being as well-developed as I thought they could be--what about these "ferals" that we keep hearing about, are they crazed from the illness or something else, and what the heck happened outside of America throughout this entire societal collapse, and are there larger settlements outside of this very particular region that we deal with in the book, and how exactly are they managing to cultivate food without certain technological measures? Some characters felt rather woefully underdeveloped as well, and I'm sorry, but the identity of who the cult leader more than likely was was a twist I saw coming from a mile away.
Still, it was a pretty solid book. I look forward to reading more from this author sometime in the future.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death, Gun violence, Violence, Pandemic/Epidemic
Moderate: Suicide, Murder
Minor: Adult/minor relationship, Child death
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
hopeful
mysterious
reflective
sad
tense
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
Content Warnings
Graphic: Confinement, Death, Suicide, Grief, Religious bigotry, Murder, Pandemic/Epidemic
Moderate: Animal death, Kidnapping, Abandonment, Alcohol
Minor: Gun violence, Rape, Medical content, Pregnancy
emotional
sad
tense
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death, Suicide, Pandemic/Epidemic
Moderate: Gun violence
adventurous
dark
hopeful
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
It's a great story that weaves together well in the end. One of the plotlines did not grab my attention as much but it's still a very worthwhile read.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Pandemic/Epidemic
Moderate: Death
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
hopeful
mysterious
reflective
sad
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
edit:
was looking at online discussions of this book last night & saw that the author has been israel-friendly in the past. I did some googling; im not sure I’d use the word “zionist” like others are as i couldn’t find much evidence of her being one. that being said, i did see some pretty tone deaf sentiments about israel’s “beauty” and learning to shoot an M16 there (wtf??) in 2011. the assault rifle part is…. freaky as hell tbh (why would you mention that? why would you even do that on vacation??), but otherwise I couldn’t find any takes from this decade. take from that what you will.
I personally would have left this book on the store shelf if I’d known of the above beforehand, as potentially funding someone’s future trip to israel kinda puts me off. i won’t pick up any future titles for that reason. plenty of other great books to read in this world without having to wonder if my money is going somewhere I’d hate it to go ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
ironically, the insane religious bigot chars she wrote into this book are from/raised in Israel; not sure how intentional that choice was, but interesting in the context of the above. overly long update over!
original review:
not much to say about this one! if i had to compare, sea of tranquility was much more interesting and i liked it better, but this is a solid book as well!
im sleepy so no long review; the writing is very nice on the eyes and the shifting perspectives actually really enhanced the story instead of just breaking it up for forced suspense like in some books.
was looking at online discussions of this book last night & saw that the author has been israel-friendly in the past. I did some googling; im not sure I’d use the word “zionist” like others are as i couldn’t find much evidence of her being one. that being said, i did see some pretty tone deaf sentiments about israel’s “beauty” and learning to shoot an M16 there (wtf??) in 2011. the assault rifle part is…. freaky as hell tbh (why would you mention that? why would you even do that on vacation??), but otherwise I couldn’t find any takes from this decade. take from that what you will.
I personally would have left this book on the store shelf if I’d known of the above beforehand, as potentially funding someone’s future trip to israel kinda puts me off. i won’t pick up any future titles for that reason. plenty of other great books to read in this world without having to wonder if my money is going somewhere I’d hate it to go ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
ironically, the insane religious bigot chars she wrote into this book are from/raised in Israel; not sure how intentional that choice was, but interesting in the context of the above. overly long update over!
original review:
not much to say about this one! if i had to compare, sea of tranquility was much more interesting and i liked it better, but this is a solid book as well!
im sleepy so no long review; the writing is very nice on the eyes and the shifting perspectives actually really enhanced the story instead of just breaking it up for forced suspense like in some books.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Child death, Death, Suicide, Religious bigotry, Pandemic/Epidemic
Moderate: Adult/minor relationship, Child abuse
Minor: Rape, Sexual assault
dark
emotional
reflective
sad
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
N/A
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death, Suicide, Pandemic/Epidemic
Moderate: Child abuse, Violence
challenging
dark
emotional
hopeful
reflective
sad
slow-paced
Strong character development:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death, Pandemic/Epidemic
Moderate: Child death, Cursing, Infidelity, Suicide, Violence