Reviews

Songs for the End of the World by Saleema Nawaz

kaybyrdy's review

emotional informative tense slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

I would offficially give this booka 6/10 aka 3 stars. There were some parts that had me reading for three hours and others that had me skipping pages. 

Pros: Good descriptions of characters and the pandemic in general. I liked that the writing allowed me  to connect the dots in the midst of the story and go back to see if i was right / if the plot point was foreshadowed initially.

Cons: Too many characters that couldn’t be thoroughly fleshed out. I personally think the writing should’ve just been focused on Sarah, Owen, and Elliott. I didn’t gaf about ARAMIS girl nor Stuy and his wife. Some information was needlessly given for sake of description and became a bore to read. AND THE ENDING OMG. The ending sucked so bad. Now i understand literature critiques about endings because the ending was so rushed and she just killed half the characters off lmao.

muse2323's review against another edition

challenging dark sad tense medium-paced

3.0

lifeinpoetry's review

Has far more faith in humanity than is deserved.

reads2cope's review against another edition

3.0

Continuing to try and work through my COVID grief by reading pandemic books. 
Just like The Lightest Object In The Universe by Kimi Eisele and Severance by Ling Ma, it was shocking how much this book got right about pandemic reactions pre-2020. Totally wild that the only response to the disease this book got wrong was that if an elected official lifted restrictions too early, grieving families whose loved ones died would get an apology.

Each chapter ends with a transition to the next POV - news articles, voicemail transcripts, blog posts, letters, emails, and more, that I really enjoyed. 

Though I liked the general concept, found the research into coronaviruses incredible, and liked the many of the artistic choices made, the book was a let down. I found it difficult to remember who was who with so many POVs/location/time jumps and most women having a short, basic names (Emma, Sarah, Rachel, Julia) and the guys having 3 letter nicknames (Stu, Ben, Jer, Ell) was frustrating. The social web map at the front of the book was impossible to read but would have been really helpful if it had been clear about who was related to who and when they met. I also would have liked a location at the start of each chapter as jumping between NYC, Landsdowne, remote cabins, out to sea, etc got hard to track. I spent the first part of the book thinking Landsdowne was in Canada. 

Every man in this book was a massive eye-roll. Could there be at least one who wasn't a cheating scumbag, cop, or otherwise selfish or indulgent ass? Shocking that with so many disloyal and sexist pigs, Emma still managed to be my least favorite character. Having a weird childhood and realizing your husband is a conservative prick doesn't excuse hosting the first superspreader event in another country only to return home with no remorse and refuse to wear a mask or social distance because she “isn’t afraid.” Her panic over Jericho was absurd. I guess it is a realistic portrayal of how people behave, but even after more of her grief was revealed, I couldn't stomach her selfish behavior that put more families at risk of her loss.

While the question of what do we owe to each other, especially in global turmoil, is obviously critical, I think this story could have made a clearer philosophical argument by cutting a lot of character chapters. I didn't need to hear from Keelan. I would have much rather heard from Dominica than from Emma, but I didn't really need to hear from either of them. This could have been a tighter and more compelling story if it chose just one family - Emma and Dominica and Stu or Elliot and Sarah and Owen. With so many people to keep track of, I was left wondering if I'd forgotten what happened to people, or if their storylines were just dropped. For example, Jericho was supposedly so entwined in Stuart's life, but where is he in the end? Why isn't he in Emma's life at all? The ending felt flat.

emmybe's review

emotional reflective sad slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes

4.0

sarahchdhry's review

challenging emotional reflective slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.0

kirky_dee's review against another edition

4.0

If you're okay with books set in a pandemic during a pandemic, this is great. If not, steer clear.

mrsthrift's review

I finished Songs for the End of the World, by Saleema Nawaz. This book came out in 2020, but it was written between 2013 and 2019. I mention this because it's is about a pandemic caused by a novel coronavirus. It is unbelievable how much of our covid-19 pandemic was predicted by Nawaz through her pandemic research. The descriptions of quarantine, mask wearing, of intimacy and loneliness, working from home, family dynamics, being pregnant/parenting during the pandemic, how the pandemic affected people's outlook on their lives and changed their relationships and behavior, how it exacerbated hardship for people and how much wealth and privilege protected other people... she even describes the anti-Asian racism that accompanied our covid-19 pandemic. She does this with literary fiction and linked stories and makes it seem easy. I admired how Nawaz was able to explore through fiction the impacts of a coronavirus pandemic in a way that was so authentic, although I also felt disappointed that we are so freaking predictable. It is a book that is hopeful, and optimistic, despite everything I am describing here. It is not a bleak or depressing book.

NOTE: this is the only novel I have encountered that had multiple families who were impacted by conception using donor gametes, for anyone with a special interest in that topic.

segreene111's review

5.0

Wow. Incredible read. So very timely. Eerily accurate how we'll Nawaz's well-researched book parallels our own coronavirus pandemic. Probably my book of the year. Needs to be made widely available for US publication! Right now it's only available to purchase from Canada.

melhara's review

2.0

The book started off pretty interesting but I slowly lost interest as the story progressed. I'm not a fan of stories with multiple POVs, which is probably why I didn't particularly enjoy this book. This was also a very character-driven story in which I didn't really care about any of the characters... Edith / ARAMIS girl (the person who is suspected to have caused the outbreak by being at the first infection zone) and Owen (the author who wrote a prescient novel about a worldwide pandemic, only to have it come true) were probably the most interesting characters. As interesting as they were, my interest in them waned by the end of the book... The best parts of this book were definitely the premise and the author's interview at the end.