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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
lukests's review against another edition
dark
mysterious
reflective
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? N/A
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Vomit, Racism, Xenophobia, Classism, Chronic illness, and Terminal illness
eve81's review against another edition
dark
mysterious
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Pandemic/Epidemic, Injury/Injury detail, Vomit, Xenophobia, Blood, Racism, Body horror, and Gore
epeolatri's review against another edition
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
1.5
Okay, I can see what this book was trying to do. It’s rare to read books about the start of the end of the world, and for that it’s unique and interesting. The characters were terribly boring and so one-dimensional. I didn’t care even a bit about any of them. The use of the third person omniscient narrator had its purpose when it could give us small bits of information on what was happening in the world outside these two families, but other than that I feel like it did a disservice to the story. Had it been written in first person maybe the urgency of the situation and the terror the characters felt would’ve seemed more real to the reader. I was mostly annoyed at their choices and the way they only ever seemed to talk about what they should do but never actually did any of it. This book needed more action and less words.
On that note, the author really really likes his metaphors and similes. Without them this book could’ve been about 100 pages shorter. An entire two or three pages were just a list of what a woman bought at the grocery store. The author also seemed weirdly obsessed with sex. At least three times I was made to read through a paragraph of a character masturbating, one of which was a minor. There was a description of a thirteen year old in a bathing suit that made me very uncomfortable. I’m not sure why the characters genitals were deemed so important to the plot.
This book should have been a lot of things, but ended up just a weird, overly wordy mess that I barely managed to get through. Maybe the netflix movie will be better.
On that note, the author really really likes his metaphors and similes. Without them this book could’ve been about 100 pages shorter. An entire two or three pages were just a list of what a woman bought at the grocery store. The author also seemed weirdly obsessed with sex. At least three times I was made to read through a paragraph of a character masturbating, one of which was a minor. There was a description of a thirteen year old in a bathing suit that made me very uncomfortable. I’m not sure why the characters genitals were deemed so important to the plot.
This book should have been a lot of things, but ended up just a weird, overly wordy mess that I barely managed to get through. Maybe the netflix movie will be better.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Injury/Injury detail and Pandemic/Epidemic
Moderate: Alcohol, Body horror, Confinement, Addiction, Excrement, Classism, Vomit, Sexual content, and Racism
Minor: Violence, Suicide, War, Xenophobia, and Death
cheye13's review against another edition
challenging
dark
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
I can see why this is a divisive book. Personally, I found it middling.
I found the character dynamics interesting - complex and conflicted enough to be worth following, but not contentious enough to be simply unpleasant. The book's strength lies in the roundedness of the characters (at least the adults).
It does feel unfinished, like a sentence missing a period. I'm not entirely sure what the message of the story is. It could have one message if a catastrophe weren't confirmed to the reader, and it was a sort of modern Monsters Due on Maple Street. It could have another if we (the reader) knew the intent or nature of the crisis. It'd have yet another if we saw just one plot point further into the story.
Not an unpleasant reading experience, but unclear what to take away.
I found the character dynamics interesting - complex and conflicted enough to be worth following, but not contentious enough to be simply unpleasant. The book's strength lies in the roundedness of the characters (at least the adults).
It does feel unfinished, like a sentence missing a period. I'm not entirely sure what the message of the story is. It could have one message if a catastrophe weren't confirmed to the reader, and it was a sort of modern Monsters Due on Maple Street. It could have another if we (the reader) knew the intent or nature of the crisis. It'd have yet another if we saw just one plot point further into the story.
Not an unpleasant reading experience, but unclear what to take away.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Alcohol, Vomit, Body horror, Injury/Injury detail, and Sexual content
Moderate: Death, Xenophobia, Classism, and Racism
Minor: Cancer and War
body horror mainly regarding teeth; some brief asides detail gruesome deaths unrelated to the main characters; racism is of the casual/ignorance variety rather than intentional crueltyeuphoriaonpluto's review against another edition
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.75
Where do I even begin with this one?
The 3 stars I'm giving this book is a compromise, as, in actuality, its two halves are two separate books in my head and I'd give the first one 2 stars and the second one 4.
The first half of this book was so boring I have no idea how I got through it. Nothing happened. It was so repetitive at times I wondered if there was an editing mistake and a paragraph had been pasted twice.
The second half, surprisingly, became more and more interesting. By the end I was on the edge of my seat, the way I was promised to be.
One major flaw that was consistent throughout the entire book was the writing style.
1. It was terribly pretentious. Literary fiction undeniably prides itself with complex prose, but this felt like the author was a college student trying to reach a word quota for an essay. It's like he was writing it with a thesaurus right next to him so he could make sure he sounds as intelligent as possible. It was insuffarable at times.
2. Did Sigmund Freud write this book? What was with the obsession with sexuality? Why did everything have to be compared to sex. Why did we have to be reminded of how horny these people are at least 5 times a chapter? I, myself, may be asexual and therefore not entirely well-versed with how libido works, but, surely, middle-aged men don't get erections because????? the sun is out????? and it's a nice day????? Even worse is the fact that this obsession with sexual metaphors didn't spare the teenage children of the protagonists, either. It was disgusting. At times it made me feel like a pedophile by proxy for reading these words. Why did I have to read about a sixteen-year-old jerking off and what kind of porn he likes? Why did I have to read a description of a sixteen-year-old boy and a thirteen-year-old girl observed by their mother, which featured nipples and "curvy" and "jiggle" and a swimsuit straining at the bottom? And why, for the love of god, did there have to be a scene where this middle-aged woman fantasises about making out with a cashier she herself describes as "could be in high school or out of it"????? The way the protagonists' children's bodies were described as sexual in nature was made even more disturbing by the fact that, quite in contrast, their mantal maturity was decreased so much it was like they were 5 and 8, respectively. How is a sixteen-year-old old enough for me to have to read a sentence about his balls, but not old enough to be told that there was a blackout in the city? What is happening here????
TLDR: First half sucked, second half was great, and it would have been ten times better if it had been written by someone who wasn't obsessed with genitals and metaphors about erections and orgasms.
The 3 stars I'm giving this book is a compromise, as, in actuality, its two halves are two separate books in my head and I'd give the first one 2 stars and the second one 4.
The first half of this book was so boring I have no idea how I got through it. Nothing happened. It was so repetitive at times I wondered if there was an editing mistake and a paragraph had been pasted twice.
The second half, surprisingly, became more and more interesting. By the end I was on the edge of my seat, the way I was promised to be.
One major flaw that was consistent throughout the entire book was the writing style.
1. It was terribly pretentious. Literary fiction undeniably prides itself with complex prose, but this felt like the author was a college student trying to reach a word quota for an essay. It's like he was writing it with a thesaurus right next to him so he could make sure he sounds as intelligent as possible. It was insuffarable at times.
2. Did Sigmund Freud write this book? What was with the obsession with sexuality? Why did everything have to be compared to sex. Why did we have to be reminded of how horny these people are at least 5 times a chapter? I, myself, may be asexual and therefore not entirely well-versed with how libido works, but, surely, middle-aged men don't get erections because????? the sun is out????? and it's a nice day????? Even worse is the fact that this obsession with sexual metaphors didn't spare the teenage children of the protagonists, either. It was disgusting. At times it made me feel like a pedophile by proxy for reading these words. Why did I have to read about a sixteen-year-old jerking off and what kind of porn he likes? Why did I have to read a description of a sixteen-year-old boy and a thirteen-year-old girl observed by their mother, which featured nipples and "curvy" and "jiggle" and a swimsuit straining at the bottom? And why, for the love of god, did there have to be a scene where this middle-aged woman fantasises about making out with a cashier she herself describes as "could be in high school or out of it"????? The way the protagonists' children's bodies were described as sexual in nature was made even more disturbing by the fact that, quite in contrast, their mantal maturity was decreased so much it was like they were 5 and 8, respectively. How is a sixteen-year-old old enough for me to have to read a sentence about his balls, but not old enough to be told that there was a blackout in the city? What is happening here????
TLDR: First half sucked, second half was great, and it would have been ten times better if it had been written by someone who wasn't obsessed with genitals and metaphors about erections and orgasms.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Pedophilia and Sexual content
Moderate: War, Xenophobia, Alcohol, Blood, Islamophobia, Racism, and Vomit
jei_alexander's review against another edition
Pretentious writing. Chapter 3 was a shopping list. Transphobic later in the book. Talks too much about naked bodies. No plot. The main character Amanda is awful. No explanation for anything that happens in the book. Amanda is racist.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Sexual content, Body horror, and Body shaming
Moderate: Racism and Xenophobia
Minor: Transphobia
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