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3.24 AVERAGE
3.24 AVERAGE
I can't believe I had to read this dialogue with my own eyes.
dark
tense
medium-paced
Just not feeling this book at the moment. Probably due to the virus in it that has affected the world’s population.
adventurous
dark
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
There's one moment, after describing the shifts in the world after the virus is a pandemic, when the author states "You can't imagine how much your world can change in 6 months. You just can't." And it is one of those lines that could only have been written pre-COVID.
I think I added this to my TBR years ago when it was still called Motherland (a better title imo). I've never read anything by this author before. There were many things I liked about this novel, especially the virus, the apocalyptic versions of religion, the authenticity of the dialogue/inner monologues. I didn't like the repeated hyper-sexualization of a child by others, the sometime misgendering/sometime not of the child, the past to present storytelling didn't add to the stakes and I think a chronological narrative starting with the excerpts the author includes in the middle would have been a better pacing.
Follow #AnaReads on Twitter for a GREAT read-a-long commentary.
If you like gritty realism, chaotic dialogue/interior monologue, and journey stories, this would be a good choice, but be warned that there is sloppy world-building and transphobia.
I received a digital ARC from Edelweiss and the publisher.
I think I added this to my TBR years ago when it was still called Motherland (a better title imo). I've never read anything by this author before. There were many things I liked about this novel, especially the virus, the apocalyptic versions of religion, the authenticity of the dialogue/inner monologues. I didn't like the repeated hyper-sexualization of a child by others, the sometime misgendering/sometime not of the child, the past to present storytelling didn't add to the stakes and I think a chronological narrative starting with the excerpts the author includes in the middle would have been a better pacing.
Follow #AnaReads on Twitter for a GREAT read-a-long commentary.
If you like gritty realism, chaotic dialogue/interior monologue, and journey stories, this would be a good choice, but be warned that there is sloppy world-building and transphobia.
I received a digital ARC from Edelweiss and the publisher.
I'm sad - DNF'ed 50 pages in. I'm a fan of Lauren Beukes, but those 50 pages felt so cliched - the mother/son banter, the kick-ass sisters who seem like men with vaginas. Maybe that kind of female character is easier to create in a visual medium where the actor's body does some of the work. Exhibit A: Regina King in Watchmen! I know that one of the facets of the book is that it creates a world without men, and this gives Beukes the opportunity to explore how/if women handle power differently than men, matriarchy vs patriarchy, but I just couldn't wade through the cliches to find out. I had a similar problem with another book on this theme, [b:Ammonite|180270|Ammonite|Nicola Griffith|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1429576542l/180270._SX50_.jpg|1876209] by Nicola Griffith, but I was able to finish it - maybe because it's science fiction, which I prefer to the thriller genre. The characters were much richer in Ammonnite, although to be fair, I didn't give Afterland characters a fair chance to show themselves to me.
Nothing about this is grabbing me. The basic premise is sound, if not particularly original, but I'm just not really interested in what happens to the characters. The constant gamification of Miles' sections also feels a bit awkward and I'm finding it quite grating.
adventurous
dark
emotional
funny
hopeful
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
So if your flaw is being male, then 100% its the main focus of this book. This story was akin to a tense dream, where you are constantly on edge, with the sense of being chased clinging to the back of every thought. It made the book hard to keep reading in the beginning, but it also made it all the more difficult to put down at the end. In my opinion, Beukes was able to pull off some of the best internal dialogue I've read in ages, weaving humour in at just the right moments, and did especially well with the morbid humour Cole develops from the events leading up to the start of the novel, or maybe that was always her sense of humour. Either way, Cole is funny, on top of every other emotion she goes through in the story. And I latched so easily into Cole's brain that Miles felt like my kid, and reading his chapters felt like I was following along as my son entered puberty, constantly feeling torn between the kid he was and the teenager he's becoming. Her sister Billie is someone you love to hate, and at times hate to love. Her f-you attitude jumped off the page. 100% entertaining, like the car chase you watch on Cops. I would probably enjoy partying with her, but would leave before the party got too out of hand, which would be entirely her fault. Would still love to hear about it the next day while we're both hungover and eating pizza.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Grief
Moderate: Cancer, Death, Gun violence, Terminal illness, Medical content
Minor: Confinement, Gore, Panic attacks/disorders, Transphobia, Vomit, Religious bigotry
3.5 but I'm not sure I can round up.
Beukes gets off to a cracking start with this one: a pandemic wipes out all but a few million men on the planet. (The particulars of the disease and its starting-in-2020 timeline make for difficult reading these days...) We follow a mother and her son, who is immune, as they try to make it back home to South Africa from California -- and the novel is, in many ways, an apocalypse road-trip novel. There are new religious cults, crazy loners, a new black market in trading semen and fertile men, and the first half (or so) of the book is really quite great... but after the interlude (a world-building exercise of three found-text pieces, which I very much enjoyed/appreciated), the book fumbles and reduces to more or less what you expect. I never felt the frisson of astonishment that I did in THE SHINING GIRLS and BROKEN MONSTERS, that sense of an imagination vivid and new. There are flashes of what I love about Beukes' work here, but it ultimately felt just sort of fine.
Beukes gets off to a cracking start with this one: a pandemic wipes out all but a few million men on the planet. (The particulars of the disease and its starting-in-2020 timeline make for difficult reading these days...) We follow a mother and her son, who is immune, as they try to make it back home to South Africa from California -- and the novel is, in many ways, an apocalypse road-trip novel. There are new religious cults, crazy loners, a new black market in trading semen and fertile men, and the first half (or so) of the book is really quite great... but after the interlude (a world-building exercise of three found-text pieces, which I very much enjoyed/appreciated), the book fumbles and reduces to more or less what you expect. I never felt the frisson of astonishment that I did in THE SHINING GIRLS and BROKEN MONSTERS, that sense of an imagination vivid and new. There are flashes of what I love about Beukes' work here, but it ultimately felt just sort of fine.