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sunbreak's review against another edition
This book is too f'ing long. Seriously. I think I'm done trudging through it for now. The different voices don't meld, and I'm simply not compelled to turn the pages. Great premise.. poor execution
veganhitchhiker's review against another edition
5.0
Chris Adrian will always have my heart with this apocalyptic Hopeful story.
jacksontibet's review against another edition
3.0
Oh Yeah, SPOILERS.
A fairly strange book, in the sense that I never knew exactly where it was taking me. Two hundred pages of hospital melodrama with hardcore medschool level diseases and afflictions start this one off, albeit there's quite a bit of "Angels" and whatnot thrown in, plus the world ends. However, this doesn't seem to faze the Hospital peoples, as they basically go on about their daily business of trying to keep the kids alive and whatnot, even though they have a machine that will make ANYTHING THEY WANT (except carbon based life forms). Seriously, if it's one thing I learned from this book, it's that Doctors are all whore faced bitches lacking imagination and are so regimented and tied down to their craft that they ignore the fact that THE WORLD HAS ENDED AND THEY ARE ON A MAGICAL FLOATING HOSPITAL IN THE MIDDLE OF AN ENDLESS OCEAN.
Jemma, the main character, doesn't have much of a personality other than being bossed around by everybody around her and dazing off into rather tame daydreams where she eventually, kind of, maybe, sort of, controls reality. Then she discovers she can heal people with green fire, so shit gets real. Everybody's saved, no more sickness, throw the beds out the window! So shit gets sunny for a couple hundred pages, all is good, let's start a government now that we've finally realized we're the last people left alive, and so on. But then a big dude gets pulled out of the drink, he has no memory, Jemma is pregnant (DINGDINGDING as if we haven't been beaten to death with the religious imagery already of Jemma being some Angel/Savior of the world).
There's a bunch of subtext shit about Angels and brothers (Pickie, the hilariously out-of-touch-but-nobody-really-recognizes-it vampire boy, "I'm 136 years old,") that don't really tie into anything except that there are four Angels of the apocalypse (a preserver, recorder, etc.) and then when it all happens, everybody dies, land is discovered, the virgin miracle jesus baby is born to Jemma (who dies immediately afterwards), the kids wake up and flood the new world.
Not a bad read overrall, just kind of tone deaf. Was it supposed to be nonsensical? No, and it really wasn't, but I just never "got" what was pseudo religious malarky and what was supposed to be taken seriously.
Also, they say to write what you know, and the dude that wrote this spent time at Harvard's Divinity School and is a Pediatric Med Student, so well done bro.
Seriously though, who was Pickie? Why a vampire? And if he wasn't supposed to be a vampire, then why was he alwasy drinking blood and complaining about "never being full" and so on. It's things like this that just left me confused. There are tons of hints and allusions that just never play out or get spelled out enough to where the reader can be certain that this was the author's intent. Is it supposed to be open ended, leaving us guessing the roles of all these not-quite-fleshed-out characters? I don't think so. I feel like he was trying to set up something grand and in the end, everything just turned into ash and fell apart, which is exactly what happens to all the adults at the end/beginning of the world.
Ok, and another thing, what was the deal with the serially sexually molested boy who was found on the abandoned cruise ship? He had every STD known to man, with the exception of "the big one" (I'm assuming AIDS) and was clutching a diary/fuck book that detailed all of his encounters with men and women on the boat in hilarious lack of detail where every sexual act is named after a former president, so it reads like "and then both of them gave me a Reagan and I did a Bush and then a Bush Jr. to them" and so on. But his role is never explicated either. The only connection to anything is that shortly after he arrives everybody starts getting the turning-to-as-sickness they call the Botch. Did he introduce it even though he's in a coma? Who knows. There's no evidence that he did, but no evidence that he didn't.
Plus, I had issues with the role of Calvin, Jemma's brother who also is the "recording angel" doomed to follow Jemma throughout her life (so he apparently relives their own childhood together). They have some weird, almost-but-not-quite brother sister love going on, petering on the edge of incest but it never quite gets there. He makes her promise never to marry anybody (with allusions to marrying him instead) and they share a bed and spend all their time together and spend all their time together and she dreams about him, all which could be sort of innocuously sweet but just feels kinda dirty, so was that his intention? Who knows.
I guess I'll stop, since this review is already way too long, but I thought I would like this a lot more than I did. It wasn't awful, just unfulfilling at the end. After the first few pages, I thought I was going to like it, but then Jemma became such a wet blanket and there was too much back and forth and no initiative from the survivors and problems with tone that it all fell apart by the end, at least for me.
A fairly strange book, in the sense that I never knew exactly where it was taking me. Two hundred pages of hospital melodrama with hardcore medschool level diseases and afflictions start this one off, albeit there's quite a bit of "Angels" and whatnot thrown in, plus the world ends. However, this doesn't seem to faze the Hospital peoples, as they basically go on about their daily business of trying to keep the kids alive and whatnot, even though they have a machine that will make ANYTHING THEY WANT (except carbon based life forms). Seriously, if it's one thing I learned from this book, it's that Doctors are all whore faced bitches lacking imagination and are so regimented and tied down to their craft that they ignore the fact that THE WORLD HAS ENDED AND THEY ARE ON A MAGICAL FLOATING HOSPITAL IN THE MIDDLE OF AN ENDLESS OCEAN.
Jemma, the main character, doesn't have much of a personality other than being bossed around by everybody around her and dazing off into rather tame daydreams where she eventually, kind of, maybe, sort of, controls reality. Then she discovers she can heal people with green fire, so shit gets real. Everybody's saved, no more sickness, throw the beds out the window! So shit gets sunny for a couple hundred pages, all is good, let's start a government now that we've finally realized we're the last people left alive, and so on. But then a big dude gets pulled out of the drink, he has no memory, Jemma is pregnant (DINGDINGDING as if we haven't been beaten to death with the religious imagery already of Jemma being some Angel/Savior of the world).
There's a bunch of subtext shit about Angels and brothers (Pickie, the hilariously out-of-touch-but-nobody-really-recognizes-it vampire boy, "I'm 136 years old,") that don't really tie into anything except that there are four Angels of the apocalypse (a preserver, recorder, etc.) and then when it all happens, everybody dies, land is discovered, the virgin miracle jesus baby is born to Jemma (who dies immediately afterwards), the kids wake up and flood the new world.
Not a bad read overrall, just kind of tone deaf. Was it supposed to be nonsensical? No, and it really wasn't, but I just never "got" what was pseudo religious malarky and what was supposed to be taken seriously.
Also, they say to write what you know, and the dude that wrote this spent time at Harvard's Divinity School and is a Pediatric Med Student, so well done bro.
Seriously though, who was Pickie? Why a vampire? And if he wasn't supposed to be a vampire, then why was he alwasy drinking blood and complaining about "never being full" and so on. It's things like this that just left me confused. There are tons of hints and allusions that just never play out or get spelled out enough to where the reader can be certain that this was the author's intent. Is it supposed to be open ended, leaving us guessing the roles of all these not-quite-fleshed-out characters? I don't think so. I feel like he was trying to set up something grand and in the end, everything just turned into ash and fell apart, which is exactly what happens to all the adults at the end/beginning of the world.
Ok, and another thing, what was the deal with the serially sexually molested boy who was found on the abandoned cruise ship? He had every STD known to man, with the exception of "the big one" (I'm assuming AIDS) and was clutching a diary/fuck book that detailed all of his encounters with men and women on the boat in hilarious lack of detail where every sexual act is named after a former president, so it reads like "and then both of them gave me a Reagan and I did a Bush and then a Bush Jr. to them" and so on. But his role is never explicated either. The only connection to anything is that shortly after he arrives everybody starts getting the turning-to-as-sickness they call the Botch. Did he introduce it even though he's in a coma? Who knows. There's no evidence that he did, but no evidence that he didn't.
Plus, I had issues with the role of Calvin, Jemma's brother who also is the "recording angel" doomed to follow Jemma throughout her life (so he apparently relives their own childhood together). They have some weird, almost-but-not-quite brother sister love going on, petering on the edge of incest but it never quite gets there. He makes her promise never to marry anybody (with allusions to marrying him instead) and they share a bed and spend all their time together and spend all their time together and she dreams about him, all which could be sort of innocuously sweet but just feels kinda dirty, so was that his intention? Who knows.
I guess I'll stop, since this review is already way too long, but I thought I would like this a lot more than I did. It wasn't awful, just unfulfilling at the end. After the first few pages, I thought I was going to like it, but then Jemma became such a wet blanket and there was too much back and forth and no initiative from the survivors and problems with tone that it all fell apart by the end, at least for me.
hnr104's review against another edition
2.0
Whew. I did not get this book. Maybe a lack of understanding on my part but it really felt like many roads leading to nowhere (I guess to death?). A very interesting premise and it certainly had enough moments to keep me reading but I can say I only want someone else to read it so that maybe they can explain it to me...?
stitchingirl908's review against another edition
1.0
I thought this was a very strange book. Debated back and forth whether to finish it or not. Finally finished it and it was a bit of a let down. Really did not understand this book at all.
headrook's review against another edition
2.0
The concept was great, but this is a slow and frustrating read. I had to stop. The interruptions of plot by the distraught ponderings of the narrator is overbearing.
duncan_meredith's review against another edition
2.0
Interesting premise, but got bogged down in sub-plots. Chose not to finish.
ericfheiman's review against another edition
4.0
It took me about a year to finally finish Adrian's 615 page novel. It was by no means perfect—at least 100 pages could probably have been shaved off it—but there is no denying it's one of the most originally realized and ambitious pieces of fiction to come along for some time. I haven't experienced this kind of neo-biblical sweep since Helprin's "Winter's Tale" (which I should re-read, now that I think about it), though this book is inspired by more bizarre and horrific Old Testament stories such as Noah's Ark (this children's hospital is actually adrift at sea most of the novel after a great rain washes away the world), not to mention plagues and sick children who speak like prophets. The books sags a bit in the middle, but it's last 200 pages are unforgettable. Stick with it if you can muster the energy.
nationofkim's review against another edition
3.0
it was surprising, after 615 pages, that i still had unanswered questions. i felt there were a lot of unnecessary details, yet certain events that were given significance were never explained or developed. frustrating.
micahhortonhallett's review against another edition
4.0
This is a gorgeously written, sprawling monstrosity of a book. The are images and scenes that float through my dreams, both asleep and in waking life. The novel is gloriously hallucinogenic, vivid and with a vast cast of characters who are so deftly drawn, you are never left wondering who the hell he is writing at any time. That said, by the time I slid into the denouement I was left wondering if a its size was far greater than its story demanded (although I would not like to be the editor deciding what should get the cut). Maybe it was the way the inevitable end was signposted, maybe it was just a bit self indulgent in its mid parts, maybe the ending could have been just a little stronger. I am going to have to let that marinate for a good long time. Well worth the price of admission though.