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A review by ehmannky
Devolution: A Firsthand Account of the Rainier Sasquatch Massacre by Max Brooks
dark
tense
medium-paced
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.75
Overall, there was enough here in this book that I liked and found entertaining to keep reading. It's bloody and spooky, but not scary enough to give me nightmares, and I appreciate that. I liked the framing device of the journal and the interspersed excerpts of "interviews" and books. I actually think the excerpts were far more effective than the actual journal entries, and they felt like a strong call back to what makes World War Z such a strong novel. Maybe it's just because Kate's journal was just too novelistic. It was just a little too perfect.
I wasn't a fan that the Asian child was silent for much of the book, as I feel like that just calls on a tired trope. I did like that Brooks explicitly draws attention to the overall point that this is a town of privileged mostly white people copying Levittowns and that they were doomed from the start because of this. I also appreciated the fact that this book points out that the Disneyfication of nature is bad and it leads to people making careless decisions and dying. However, I didn't like the implication that Kate and Pal have "devolved" into some kind of savage, primitive creature on the off chance that they may be hunting the Sasquatch herd at the end of the novel. It just tickles something that I did not care for. There's also the implication given the description of some of their character's developments that their issues such as anxiety or hypochondria are just products of society and can be cured in a way by this intense situation, and that also just rankles me.
I wasn't a fan that the Asian child was silent for much of the book, as I feel like that just calls on a tired trope. I did like that Brooks explicitly draws attention to the overall point that this is a town of privileged mostly white people copying Levittowns and that they were doomed from the start because of this. I also appreciated the fact that this book points out that the Disneyfication of nature is bad and it leads to people making careless decisions and dying. However, I didn't like the implication that Kate and Pal have "devolved" into some kind of savage, primitive creature on the off chance that they may be hunting the Sasquatch herd at the end of the novel. It just tickles something that I did not care for. There's also the implication given the description of some of their character's developments that their issues such as anxiety or hypochondria are just products of society and can be cured in a way by this intense situation, and that also just rankles me.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Blood, Body horror, Death, Excrement, Gore, Grief, and Toxic relationship
Minor: Cancer