A review by tasharobinson
The Silent Land by Graham Joyce

3.0

The first part of this book really caught me, as a married couple on vacation struggles to survive an avalanche, then to explain the increasingly strange phenomena that follow, as they find themselves in an empty world, with all the luxuries they could want, but no people, and no sense of time passing for the objects around them — meat doesn't decay, candles don't burn down, etc. But as the story went on, it started to feel more and more arbitrary and repetitive, as they alternate sex and luxurious meals with hiding things from each other and freaking out about strange phenomena. By halfway through the book, I knew where it was going and I was waiting for either the twist or for the focus to shift more to the psychological aspects of the situation, which it didn't. This reminded me of the film Bokeh, which has a very similar premise, sans avalanche, but that film ends up being more about the human effects of this situation, and less about a foreordained reveal. I liked the writing in this book, but struggled to finish it.