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4.16 AVERAGE
4.16 AVERAGE
4.5 stars. Would’ve been 5 stars but I was hoping for Kristen and Jeevan to reunite since that night Arthur died had made such a lasting mark on their pre-collapse lives. I was also expecting to find out why Kristen couldn’t remember what happened on the road in year one.
slow-paced
I almost gave this one star, because I did not enjoy this book and would not recommend anyone read it - but on the other hand, the author writes well, so I gave it the extra star.
The jacket blurb says this book is about the collapse of civilisation after a deadly virus sweeps around the world. It isn't.
Instead, most of the book is a biography of a self-centred actor called Arthur Leander. Arthur dies of a heart attack in the opening chapter, on the very day the virus arrives in America. So it's jarring to find oneself reading his life story in section 3, when all you want to do is read more about how other characters managed to survive the Collapse, as it's called. The guy died before it all happened, what does he have to do with anything?
I think the idea is that his treatment of his friends, wives and child have ripples which affect other people after the Collapse. But there was a great deal of other boring information about Arthur that could easily have been left out, while still conveying that message.
It sometimes seemed to me that the Collapse and its aftermath were just a device to display the interplay of these characters, and therefore the author hadn't felt the need to think it through properly. Apparently she has said it's not intended to be science fiction - which could be interpreted as , "I couldn't be bothered researching what would really happen in this situation". Most of the post-Collapse story took place 20 years later, in an utterly predictable landscape which could have come straight out of any other dystopian-future novel. The Collapse itself was glossed over, and what was mentioned didn't gel for me. A few examples:
1. The virus ultimately kills 99% of the world's population - but would that really have happened in a matter of days, as in the book? Even if it's highly contagious and the first symptoms appear within hours, surely it would still take far longer than that to infect a whole planet?
2. The internet stops working on Day Six. Why? Data centers are very good at running without human intervention, provided they have electricity, so that made no sense (apart from being a convenient plot device to stop the characters knowing what was going on). Even when the electricity stopped, large data centers have big generators that switch on automatically - and many of them have enough fuel in reserve tanks to run for days.
3. Electricity and water fail within a month. Again, did the author do any research to find out how long they might work? I know power stations and water treatment plants need staff, but I suspect they could limp along for quite a while even without people watching over them. Oil and gas powered plant would run out of fuel, but what about hydro-electric or tidal or wind farms? Houses with solar panels?
4. The survivors are a mixture of people who were immune and people who managed to stay out of the way until the pandemic was over. But I can't think of a virus that has affected humans and then totally died out - so that means the virus would still be in the environment and therefore the non-immune people would be at risk. Yet no one seems to be worried about the risk of infection from strangers.
The jacket blurb says this book is about the collapse of civilisation after a deadly virus sweeps around the world. It isn't.
Instead, most of the book is a biography of a self-centred actor called Arthur Leander. Arthur dies of a heart attack in the opening chapter, on the very day the virus arrives in America. So it's jarring to find oneself reading his life story in section 3, when all you want to do is read more about how other characters managed to survive the Collapse, as it's called. The guy died before it all happened, what does he have to do with anything?
I think the idea is that his treatment of his friends, wives and child have ripples which affect other people after the Collapse. But there was a great deal of other boring information about Arthur that could easily have been left out, while still conveying that message.
It sometimes seemed to me that the Collapse and its aftermath were just a device to display the interplay of these characters, and therefore the author hadn't felt the need to think it through properly. Apparently she has said it's not intended to be science fiction - which could be interpreted as , "I couldn't be bothered researching what would really happen in this situation". Most of the post-Collapse story took place 20 years later, in an utterly predictable landscape which could have come straight out of any other dystopian-future novel. The Collapse itself was glossed over, and what was mentioned didn't gel for me. A few examples:
Spoiler
1. The virus ultimately kills 99% of the world's population - but would that really have happened in a matter of days, as in the book? Even if it's highly contagious and the first symptoms appear within hours, surely it would still take far longer than that to infect a whole planet?
2. The internet stops working on Day Six. Why? Data centers are very good at running without human intervention, provided they have electricity, so that made no sense (apart from being a convenient plot device to stop the characters knowing what was going on). Even when the electricity stopped, large data centers have big generators that switch on automatically - and many of them have enough fuel in reserve tanks to run for days.
3. Electricity and water fail within a month. Again, did the author do any research to find out how long they might work? I know power stations and water treatment plants need staff, but I suspect they could limp along for quite a while even without people watching over them. Oil and gas powered plant would run out of fuel, but what about hydro-electric or tidal or wind farms? Houses with solar panels?
4. The survivors are a mixture of people who were immune and people who managed to stay out of the way until the pandemic was over. But I can't think of a virus that has affected humans and then totally died out - so that means the virus would still be in the environment and therefore the non-immune people would be at risk. Yet no one seems to be worried about the risk of infection from strangers.
adventurous
sad
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
adventurous
emotional
hopeful
inspiring
mysterious
reflective
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
Fantastic Book.
Loved this way more than I thought I would! The structure of this novel was great, I loved the weaving of past and present.
Not just a typical dystopian novel. The author uses a pandemic that wipes out 99% of people as well as flashing back and forward to explore the thoughts of life and mortality. I enjoyed it.
medium-paced
adventurous
mysterious
reflective
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes