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ifoundcallie's review against another edition
dark
reflective
sad
tense
medium-paced
- 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
I feel like if you read this book as a literacy fiction novel with a lens towards social commentary in America, it is stunning. The layers and layers of metaphor on discomfort and humanity—so good! The author’s craft leads readers through a sociological exercise where they is forced to grapple with what it means to be part of the human race, particularly in the context of individualism in Western culture. The fact that the author took ALL OF THAT, and weaved it within the unraveling of a literal apocalypse (of which specifics are vastly unknown)….So. Damn. Good. I had chills multiple times and ran out of ink in my highlighter.
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.
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.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Body horror, Blood, Confinement, and Pandemic/Epidemic
Moderate: Alcoholism, Alcohol, Sexual content, War, Excrement, Cursing, Vomit, Racism, and Classism
Minor: Suicide, Gore, Sexism, Suicidal thoughts, Sexual violence, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Medical trauma, Incest, Gun violence, Colonisation, Torture, Car accident, Child death, Misogyny, Hate crime, Genocide, Homophobia, Dementia, Cancer, Xenophobia, Violence, Religious bigotry, Lesbophobia, Fatphobia, Body shaming, and Suicide attempt
madarauchiha's review against another edition
dark
mysterious
fast-paced
2.0
❤️ 🧡 💛 💚 💙 💜 my about / byf / CW info carrd: uchiha-madara 💜 💙 💚 💛 🧡 ❤️
Like. A whole lotta nothing happens. Not really creepy or horrific. If I look at reviews and see fives I might be mad and confused. I'll admit it, I don't get this book at all. It's incredibly horny to the point of hysterical laughing. Um if I wanted to read legal minors jerking off I'd fire up a oh three dot org. Just kidding I'm normal so I would not seek out child porn written by thirty yo fandom freaks.
The writing and themes were interesting, I just don't think the pay off was worthwhile.
My reading time .82 hours. Meh.
Like. A whole lotta nothing happens. Not really creepy or horrific. If I look at reviews and see fives I might be mad and confused. I'll admit it, I don't get this book at all. It's incredibly horny to the point of hysterical laughing. Um if I wanted to read legal minors jerking off I'd fire up a oh three dot org. Just kidding I'm normal so I would not seek out child porn written by thirty yo fandom freaks.
The writing and themes were interesting, I just don't think the pay off was worthwhile.
My reading time .82 hours. Meh.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Vomit, Alcoholism, Gore, and Sexual content
Moderate: Death, Sexual content, Drug use, and Racism
Minor: Suicidal thoughts, Cancer, Vomit, and Animal death
kelseyland's review against another edition
dark
mysterious
reflective
tense
medium-paced
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
This is a deeply unsettling book about a path that slowly curves away from normalcy, and the things that people tell themselves to pretend that the curve isn't there. The prose is pristine: Alam is meticulous in his descriptions of the mundane as it slowly slips toward the unsettling, the horrific, and the unthinkable. I wouldn't say that this book is totally bleak, though: only mostly bleak, and also phenomenal.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Body horror, Blood, Vomit, and Sexual content
Moderate: Alcoholism, Racism, and Confinement
wai's review against another edition
slow-paced
- 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
I don't think this (2020) was the year to publish this book, I think that was a very unfortunate coincidence that does not work in its favor whatsoever. I guess this is a satire of sorts - it doesn't make sense any other way. All of the characters are fundamentally unlikeable and that does not change as the book progresses. It is a book of annoying upper class people who live in New York City and foster all of the elitism that immediately jumps to your mind with just that minor description. Alam has decided throughout the novel that we need to hear all of their innermost thoughts, constantly switching between characters, often in a way that is disruptive and confusing. A lot of inappropriate thoughts and "they thought something racist that they would never reveal due to shame". Okay - I'd buy it if it actually tied into a cohesive plot or line of thinking, but of course, that is not the case here.
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.
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.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Sexual content, Vomit, Blood, and Alcoholism
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.
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