danielwestheide 's review for:

Afterland by Lauren Beukes
4.0

Turns out reading about a pandemic that has killed almost all of the male population can be used for the purpose of escapism during a global pandemic. I really enjoyed this book, which is pretty much a road movie turned into a novel.

The book starts in medias res, and switches between the perspectives of Cole, her son Miles (who are both on the run) and Cole's sister Billie, who wants to sell them out. I enjoyed how the author interleaved the current plot with flashback chapters that explain how the current clusterfuck came to be. The book raises interesting questions about what a society would look like if almost everyone with a prostata had disappeared within a couple of years.