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A review by trout_lily
Songs for the End of the World by Saleema Nawaz
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
1.5
The fact that she wrote this novel before COVID made this book intriguing to me and I wanted to see how she unwrapped her fictional pandemic story given our real experiences since 2020. I am also really drawn to books about characters with intersecting lives navigating disasters and looking for a way forward. So I was doubly looking looking forward to it.
35 pages in and I was done. But, while waiting for other books to arrive from the library I went back and finished it.
The characters are formulaic and so flat that I just don't care about their lives. More bizarrely, it centred mediocre, shitty, white men with the all but one white woman as nagging desperate women with adjacent story lines. Even then they were one dimensional. Aramis Girl/ Ed was the only interesting character and given the nature of anti-Asian racism eluded to, she was given very short shrift and served as a backdrop to a white man. Why, why why??
The pandemic itself feels like a lacklustre backdrop. Given all the research that went into this book I expected a little more urgency of the situation and little more time early on with the viral spread and the societal changes to get set the ambience for the character arcs. No doing.
I wonder if we were not experiencing the COVID pandemic in real life, would this book be better? I don't think so.
35 pages in and I was done. But, while waiting for other books to arrive from the library I went back and finished it.
The characters are formulaic and so flat that I just don't care about their lives. More bizarrely, it centred mediocre, shitty, white men with the all but one white woman as nagging desperate women with adjacent story lines. Even then they were one dimensional. Aramis Girl/ Ed was the only interesting character and given the nature of anti-Asian racism eluded to, she was given very short shrift and served as a backdrop to a white man. Why, why why??
The pandemic itself feels like a lacklustre backdrop. Given all the research that went into this book I expected a little more urgency of the situation and little more time early on with the viral spread and the societal changes to get set the ambience for the character arcs. No doing.
I wonder if we were not experiencing the COVID pandemic in real life, would this book be better? I don't think so.