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A review by emjay2021
Songs for the End of the World by Saleema Nawaz
4.0
I think Saleema Nawaz’ biggest strengths as a writer are her ability to build a clear portrait of each character and her ability to paint a clear picture of this speculative world and the anxieties it contains. Considering that this was written so far in advance of the current pandemic, it is eerie to see how much she got right. A year into the pandemic, I found myself almost glossing over parts of it because they featured things we now take for granted (mind you, other things made me think, well *that* would never happen).
I listened to this as an audiobook, with multiple narrators, and I thought it was really well done, though I did have to speed it up quite a bit to make it sound normal. There were a couple of CBC Radio hosts in here--I was pretty tickled to realize that Ali Hassan and Nana aba Duncan were two of the voices. There are a lot of characters, and it takes a while to see how they are all connected. I did have a few moments of trying to remember who was who—as my friend Doug pointed out, when you are listening to it, you don’t have the option of looking at the “who’s who” chart that exists in the paper book. But it wasn’t too bad and I figured it out. I knew who the main characters were; I mostly got mixed up in who some of the more minor characters were.
I cared more about some characters than others (which is normal, I think). I really disliked Owen, even though he grew on me a little more by the end of the book. I was also irked by Stu and adult Emma, though I liked the section about Emma’s childhood a lot. I liked Elliot and Sarah, and although their university professor parents were kind of exasperating, they made me laugh because I know people like that. Edith/Ed/Xiaolan was an interesting character and I wish we could have spent more time with her.
If you are looking for a pandemic thriller, this isn’t it. It’s really more concerned with existential crises. It is relatively slow paced; there’s not much suspense, just kind of a dreamlike feeling. The characters are often just slogging through their days, which are alternately filled with tedium and terror as they grapple with the unknown. They rehash their past, ponder their regrets, try to reconnect with past relationships (romantic and otherwise) and reaffirm current ones, and generally confront their mortality in the face of the aggressive ARAMIS virus. I’m sure there are plenty of people who can relate to this; whether or not you want your fiction to hold up such an unflinching mirror will be an individual choice.
[Content warnings:
I listened to this as an audiobook, with multiple narrators, and I thought it was really well done, though I did have to speed it up quite a bit to make it sound normal. There were a couple of CBC Radio hosts in here--I was pretty tickled to realize that Ali Hassan and Nana aba Duncan were two of the voices. There are a lot of characters, and it takes a while to see how they are all connected. I did have a few moments of trying to remember who was who—as my friend Doug pointed out, when you are listening to it, you don’t have the option of looking at the “who’s who” chart that exists in the paper book. But it wasn’t too bad and I figured it out. I knew who the main characters were; I mostly got mixed up in who some of the more minor characters were.
I cared more about some characters than others (which is normal, I think). I really disliked Owen, even though he grew on me a little more by the end of the book. I was also irked by Stu and adult Emma, though I liked the section about Emma’s childhood a lot. I liked Elliot and Sarah, and although their university professor parents were kind of exasperating, they made me laugh because I know people like that. Edith/Ed/Xiaolan was an interesting character and I wish we could have spent more time with her.
If you are looking for a pandemic thriller, this isn’t it. It’s really more concerned with existential crises. It is relatively slow paced; there’s not much suspense, just kind of a dreamlike feeling. The characters are often just slogging through their days, which are alternately filled with tedium and terror as they grapple with the unknown. They rehash their past, ponder their regrets, try to reconnect with past relationships (romantic and otherwise) and reaffirm current ones, and generally confront their mortality in the face of the aggressive ARAMIS virus. I’m sure there are plenty of people who can relate to this; whether or not you want your fiction to hold up such an unflinching mirror will be an individual choice.
[Content warnings: