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A review by seriouslybookedup
Wonderblood by Julia Whicker
3.0
I mentioned in my last wrap-up how my appetite for weird books continues to grow. This book taught me that maybe there is such a thing as too weird.
“Wonderblood” started off strong – set 500 years into the future when most of the world’s population has been wiped out by a strange Mad Cow-type of disease. Cult-like religious sects practice astrology and other superstitious divinations. Oh and beheadings. Lots and lots of beheadings. This is a bloody, strange little book set in Cape Canaveral, FL (what?). I really wanted to like this and for the first 60% or so of this book, I did. But I think the author ran out of steam and couldn’t fully realize where she wanted her characters to go and why. The story felt like I was constantly climbing uphill without ever cresting it.
There’s a lot to discuss about this book (i.e. parallels to modern religion, destiny, violence) and there’s a lot of niggling details that poke holes in the story (i.e. What happened to 21st century tech and literature? What happened to the world outside of the U.S.?). Julia Whicker’s prose is excellent and her writing makes this totally worth reading (if you can stomach the weirdness and the violence) but the ending was pointlessly ambiguous and disappointing.
“Wonderblood” started off strong – set 500 years into the future when most of the world’s population has been wiped out by a strange Mad Cow-type of disease. Cult-like religious sects practice astrology and other superstitious divinations. Oh and beheadings. Lots and lots of beheadings. This is a bloody, strange little book set in Cape Canaveral, FL (what?). I really wanted to like this and for the first 60% or so of this book, I did. But I think the author ran out of steam and couldn’t fully realize where she wanted her characters to go and why. The story felt like I was constantly climbing uphill without ever cresting it.
There’s a lot to discuss about this book (i.e. parallels to modern religion, destiny, violence) and there’s a lot of niggling details that poke holes in the story (i.e. What happened to 21st century tech and literature? What happened to the world outside of the U.S.?). Julia Whicker’s prose is excellent and her writing makes this totally worth reading (if you can stomach the weirdness and the violence) but the ending was pointlessly ambiguous and disappointing.