A review by criticaljenn
A Children's Bible by Lydia Millet

4.0

I checked this out after seeing the title pop up on a number of "best books of the year" lists, and it was, indeed, an impressive feat of writing. (As someone who works with words myself, I can appreciate the high level of difficulty involved in efficiently and memorably characterizing a dozen herd-like kids, and recreating biblical situations in contemporary times with skill and restraint.) Like "Station Eleven," this book will inevitably be haunting me for a while, as it touches on the reality of what we will all, as a global community, are drawing closer to facing: the reckoning of climate change. The adults in the book, fittingly, are drinking and screwing themselves into oblivion, seeing no avenue for changing the course of where things are headed, so it's inevitably children who at least try to focus on survival and finding a way through. Admittedly, this novel probably wasn't the best choice for me to jump into during an already-tough pandemic holiday season - I'm thinking enough about our collective struggle to care for each other these days - but it's impossible to deny its power nonetheless.