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rosiefpb's review against another edition
4.0
Oo. Alternate timeline disaster movie distopia, but one that kept me really engaged. Almost like a Margaret Atwood novel. I loved the cast of children, especially Jack and Shel.
libliz's review
4.0
4.5 stars. Not at all what I expected! Very close to a five star book for me. Only let down was a few heavy-handed allegories, but I loved these kids and wanted them to succeed in building their own futures.
dkremraf's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
funny
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.0
Such a strange book, it's hard to describe! And I don't recommend reading any description before diving in - just go for it!
shegde's review against another edition
dark
emotional
reflective
sad
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
benplatt's review against another edition
4.0
A Children's Bible is up-front about its allegorical nature. The title alone clues the reader into the fact that Millet isn't trying to present a work of literary fiction or realism, but rather a book that attempts to create a set of symbols that work together to say something about the current ecological crisis that we are all living through. What Millet doesn't reveal is how much this book is about the failures of allegory, at least ones that depend on traditional modes of storytelling and even traditional symbols (like the Bible), to capture the reality of climate crisis. The novel begins biblically with abstract descriptions of the lake these families are staying at and a cavalcade of names belonging to teens so precocious they are only bearable in the context of this allegory and that are impossible to keep track of until you're at least 75% of the way through the book. But the biblical allegory that Millet promised beings to fray at the seams almost as soon as the story begins; Biblical allusions and symbols are scattered throughout the text, but never in a clean-cut way and out of order with the Bible's own narrative progression. The Biblical frame never coheres into a fully fleshed out allegory, never points to some way through the crisis that is depicted in the novel. Instead, like the children of the book who are forced to make their own way without the guidance of their frustratingly impotent parents, the reader has to ask how much good our traditional stories and ways of thinking about the world can do in navigating the world to come. It's an interesting experiment that mostly works, even if this conclusion and the plot of the novel are less propulsive and compelling than one might hope for from a novel with such a potentially scathing premise.
spenkevich's review against another edition
3.0
‘That was the sad thing about my molecules: they wouldn’t remember him.’
The world ravaged by climate change, society thrashing in its death throes, a possible pandemic looming...a few years ago this might have seemed to some like the works of speculative apocalyptic fiction (or a natural prediction of the future to others). Lydia Millet’s newest novel, A Children’s Bible, tackles this potential future in a utterly engaging story that juxtaposes the youth culture with their parental generation in the handling of mass chaos. Set in some idyllic beach town on the East coast, a group of former college friends have gathered for one last hurrah in a rented house, bringing their children who detest the adults and the way they ignore impending doom by doing nothing beyond dancing and drinking. The children band together, initially through a game of trying to hide which adults they belong to, and inevitably set off on their own course of survival when everything comes crashing down. The novel is unfortunately exclusive to the narratives of white upper-middle class society despite urgent warnings that oppressed groups of people will be harmed the most from such catastrophe. Rife with Biblical allusions and metaphors, Millet examines generational divides and toxic social constructs in an apocalyptic novel that will certainly keep you up late eagerly reading onward.
Millet does well by giving life to a story in a fairly ready-made apocalyptic landscape. At this point, one does not have to dig too hard to find the data on impending climate crisis, or the vocal denialists. At present, scientists are warning of disaster a decade or so away. In the novel, it is no longer minimized as a political position for debate but an undeniable reality everyone is watching unfold. Eve and her companions are very aware of this--at the start of the book she is weighing how to break the news to her innocent 11 year old brother Jack--though still not sure what to make of it until the collapse finally happens. The adults, however, continue to always look away. In her book This Changes Everything, [a:Naomi Klein|419|Naomi Klein|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1494619590p2/419.jpg] talks about the many ways we avoid engaging with the impending climate crisis--or acknowledging then looking away again--thus making us complicit in its inevitability through our inaction:
The adults in this novel spend their time laughing and drinking and carrying on upholding the same society they know deep down is pushing everyone closer to the cliff’s edge. In the youth group, the frustration with their inaction manifests itself in disgust and distrust. ‘They shamed us,’ the narrator, Eve (many of the Biblical allusions are not exactly subtle), says of the parents, ‘they were a cautionary tale.’ They actively undermine the parent’s fun vacation and the bond over their shared disdain winks at the social tensions between the Boomer and Millennial Generation. For this purpose it seems Millet had written the dialogue of the teenage group to reflect Millennials. At first the dialogue fell flat for me as it seemed to be outdated slang and did not sound like a modern day teenager. It does, however, sound like how we talked when I was that age.
When they meet with a group of campers from the highest echelons of society--rich blonde boys on private yachts with famous parents who own apocalypse bunkers (‘with eleven backup generators!’ boasts one)--we see another youth culture that has dealt with the failures of the previous generations through a more Machiavellian approach and hide behind the wealth. The same accumulation of wealth that has set the world on a crash course, one of the boys notes.
“Listen. We know we let you down,” said a mother. “But what could we have done, really?”
“Fight,” said Rafe. “Did you ever fight?”
“Or did you just do exactly what you wanted?” said Jen. “Always?”
When a multi-day storm devastates the land the plot erupts along with the collapse of polite society. Jack, who has been given an illustrated children’s Bible by one of the mothers, begins to draw connections between the book and their predicament. They weather the storm in an “ark”--a treefort he and a hearing impaired boy Shel have filled with animals they rescued from the storm--and then set off with a man they found who has drifted down the river to a safe house he knows about, leaving the parents behind to their own vices. While the many Bible references are clever, they tend to be quite heavy-handed and not particularly fresh. While I did quite enjoy the way Paul the former tax collector is played out through a member of the armed militia that inevitably invades, many of the Biblical stories-come-to-life aren’t particularly exciting and fairly obvious, such as a list of homestead rules with “don’t make noise on the weekend” for example.
That said, the references are fun--three Trail Angels that show up at a birth and provide guidance is clever and charming--and don’t push a religious message per say. What Millet does well is use the allusions to create a sense of history-repeating-itself and while it relies heavily on the metaphors it never fully becomes an allegory, and this works to the benefit of the novel. It is not necessarily a religious novel, and much of the biblical usage becomes a message of believing in science. Jack decides he has decoded the Bible to be a metaphor with God as a stand in for Nature, Jesus as a stand in for Science, though he is still working out the Holy Spirit. ‘[I]f we believe science is real,’ he proclaims, ‘then we can act. And we’ll be saved.’
As noted earlier, this is all part of Millet hoping to appeal to an audience that, it seems, she has determined through marketing algorithms will be something like middle aged white people who have a familiarity with Biblical teachings but wouldn’t view reworking them in a climate change novel to be blasphemous. If she is trying to push people towards expanding their views, that is cool, but the erasure of marginalized communities or the exponentially worse fates that will befall lower classes--particularly on racial lines--is rather unfortunate. Also perhaps only adds to the dangers that they face when couching everything in a white, middle-class society. The militia that arrive appear to be lower class--also white--which does tend to typecast anyone on the lower end of the financial spectrum as likely criminals. Additionally, the handling of the character Low--an adopted boy who can trace his ancestors back to Genghis Khan--is fairly problematic. Eve continuously gripes on how his manner of dress makes him undesirable and frequently is disgusted by the memory of kissing him and saying his tongue tasted like a ‘old banana’. While an argument could be made that Millet is showing how white middle-class culture distorts and rots culture, especially with the banana reference it still seems to judge the only character of Color based on their ‘exoticism’. There is a progressive attempt to critique society though, such as a few reprimands over homophobia from one of the younger boys and a character correcting improper when referring to trans folk.
Eve has an obsession with looks, though, that does work well into the message of the novel. She is disgusted by aging bodies (admittedly there is a lot of ageism that is inherent to this book), dislikes Low’s wearing of tie-dyed shirts and short shorts, etc. Much of this is critical, however, to a consumerist culture.
‘It suggested we’d had a low bar or triumph, in recent history. A dash of lipstick qualified, a haircut and some styling gel. A new outfit.
That was what the human spirit had turned into.’
Aiming this particularly at clothing does nudge towards the expulsion from Eden when Adam and Eve were found ashamed of their nakedness. As the novel progresses, Eve drops much of this tone as she sees the ways life takes people in unexpected directions and so much of ourselves is forged in a society that is pushing towards our own destruction. She has a vision midway through the novel where she begins to reflect on our purer selves that are lost in the world and, finally, is able to give empathy to those she had detested.
One particularly positive aspect of the novel is the way the youth attempt to form a sustainable society. Millet does well to demonstrate that a union with the land in which one does not take more than it can give is a way forward. She avoids the eco-fascist approach that ‘humans are the cancer’ which ignores indigenous groups and societies that have managed to care for the environment in a productive manner and instead focuses her criticism on those who abuse the land and harm the environment. There is a championing of the human spirit in those who are able to adapt and find better, more efficient ways in living. This is once again juxtaposed with the adult group who cannot strip themselves of a life that is never coming back. The parents attempt to continue their job over Skype meetings (oh if only Millet knew it would have been Zoom) and fall into despair wanting to return to their normal. It is an interesting point being made in a book coming out pre-COVID but released as Americans were so divided over reopening the economy despite a pandemic still looming.
Despite a few misgivings, A Children’s Bible is quite an exciting and enjoyable novel. The relationship between Eve and her brother adds a tender heart amidst a dark and chaotic story, and there is a depth that makes for an enjoyable dive textually and a fast-moving plot that has one surprise after the next. Think [b:Lord of the Flies|7624|Lord of the Flies|William Golding|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1327869409l/7624._SY75_.jpg|2766512] meets [b:The Road|6288|The Road|Cormac McCarthy|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1600241424l/6288._SY75_.jpg|3355573]. I enjoyed this one, though I feel that Octavia Butler made better use of some of these themes in [b:Parable of the Sower|41161349|Parable of the Sower (Earthseed, #1)|Octavia E. Butler|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1676133792l/41161349._SY75_.jpg|59258], though the interplay between generations in this one was really thought provoking and entertaining. This is a book that will especially hit home right now as we are all still navigating a pandemic.
3 / 5
The world ravaged by climate change, society thrashing in its death throes, a possible pandemic looming...a few years ago this might have seemed to some like the works of speculative apocalyptic fiction (or a natural prediction of the future to others). Lydia Millet’s newest novel, A Children’s Bible, tackles this potential future in a utterly engaging story that juxtaposes the youth culture with their parental generation in the handling of mass chaos. Set in some idyllic beach town on the East coast, a group of former college friends have gathered for one last hurrah in a rented house, bringing their children who detest the adults and the way they ignore impending doom by doing nothing beyond dancing and drinking. The children band together, initially through a game of trying to hide which adults they belong to, and inevitably set off on their own course of survival when everything comes crashing down. The novel is unfortunately exclusive to the narratives of white upper-middle class society despite urgent warnings that oppressed groups of people will be harmed the most from such catastrophe. Rife with Biblical allusions and metaphors, Millet examines generational divides and toxic social constructs in an apocalyptic novel that will certainly keep you up late eagerly reading onward.
Millet does well by giving life to a story in a fairly ready-made apocalyptic landscape. At this point, one does not have to dig too hard to find the data on impending climate crisis, or the vocal denialists. At present, scientists are warning of disaster a decade or so away. In the novel, it is no longer minimized as a political position for debate but an undeniable reality everyone is watching unfold. Eve and her companions are very aware of this--at the start of the book she is weighing how to break the news to her innocent 11 year old brother Jack--though still not sure what to make of it until the collapse finally happens. The adults, however, continue to always look away. In her book This Changes Everything, [a:Naomi Klein|419|Naomi Klein|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1494619590p2/419.jpg] talks about the many ways we avoid engaging with the impending climate crisis--or acknowledging then looking away again--thus making us complicit in its inevitability through our inaction:
‘We engage in this odd form of on-again-off-again ecological amnesia for perfectly rational reasons. We deny because we fear that letting in the full reality of this crisis will change everything. And we are right.’
The adults in this novel spend their time laughing and drinking and carrying on upholding the same society they know deep down is pushing everyone closer to the cliff’s edge. In the youth group, the frustration with their inaction manifests itself in disgust and distrust. ‘They shamed us,’ the narrator, Eve (many of the Biblical allusions are not exactly subtle), says of the parents, ‘they were a cautionary tale.’ They actively undermine the parent’s fun vacation and the bond over their shared disdain winks at the social tensions between the Boomer and Millennial Generation. For this purpose it seems Millet had written the dialogue of the teenage group to reflect Millennials. At first the dialogue fell flat for me as it seemed to be outdated slang and did not sound like a modern day teenager. It does, however, sound like how we talked when I was that age.
When they meet with a group of campers from the highest echelons of society--rich blonde boys on private yachts with famous parents who own apocalypse bunkers (‘with eleven backup generators!’ boasts one)--we see another youth culture that has dealt with the failures of the previous generations through a more Machiavellian approach and hide behind the wealth. The same accumulation of wealth that has set the world on a crash course, one of the boys notes.
“Listen. We know we let you down,” said a mother. “But what could we have done, really?”
“Fight,” said Rafe. “Did you ever fight?”
“Or did you just do exactly what you wanted?” said Jen. “Always?”
When a multi-day storm devastates the land the plot erupts along with the collapse of polite society. Jack, who has been given an illustrated children’s Bible by one of the mothers, begins to draw connections between the book and their predicament. They weather the storm in an “ark”--a treefort he and a hearing impaired boy Shel have filled with animals they rescued from the storm--and then set off with a man they found who has drifted down the river to a safe house he knows about, leaving the parents behind to their own vices. While the many Bible references are clever, they tend to be quite heavy-handed and not particularly fresh. While I did quite enjoy the way Paul the former tax collector is played out through a member of the armed militia that inevitably invades, many of the Biblical stories-come-to-life aren’t particularly exciting and fairly obvious, such as a list of homestead rules with “don’t make noise on the weekend” for example.
That said, the references are fun--three Trail Angels that show up at a birth and provide guidance is clever and charming--and don’t push a religious message per say. What Millet does well is use the allusions to create a sense of history-repeating-itself and while it relies heavily on the metaphors it never fully becomes an allegory, and this works to the benefit of the novel. It is not necessarily a religious novel, and much of the biblical usage becomes a message of believing in science. Jack decides he has decoded the Bible to be a metaphor with God as a stand in for Nature, Jesus as a stand in for Science, though he is still working out the Holy Spirit. ‘[I]f we believe science is real,’ he proclaims, ‘then we can act. And we’ll be saved.’
As noted earlier, this is all part of Millet hoping to appeal to an audience that, it seems, she has determined through marketing algorithms will be something like middle aged white people who have a familiarity with Biblical teachings but wouldn’t view reworking them in a climate change novel to be blasphemous. If she is trying to push people towards expanding their views, that is cool, but the erasure of marginalized communities or the exponentially worse fates that will befall lower classes--particularly on racial lines--is rather unfortunate. Also perhaps only adds to the dangers that they face when couching everything in a white, middle-class society. The militia that arrive appear to be lower class--also white--which does tend to typecast anyone on the lower end of the financial spectrum as likely criminals. Additionally, the handling of the character Low--an adopted boy who can trace his ancestors back to Genghis Khan--is fairly problematic. Eve continuously gripes on how his manner of dress makes him undesirable and frequently is disgusted by the memory of kissing him and saying his tongue tasted like a ‘old banana’. While an argument could be made that Millet is showing how white middle-class culture distorts and rots culture, especially with the banana reference it still seems to judge the only character of Color based on their ‘exoticism’. There is a progressive attempt to critique society though, such as a few reprimands over homophobia from one of the younger boys and a character correcting improper when referring to trans folk.
Eve has an obsession with looks, though, that does work well into the message of the novel. She is disgusted by aging bodies (admittedly there is a lot of ageism that is inherent to this book), dislikes Low’s wearing of tie-dyed shirts and short shorts, etc. Much of this is critical, however, to a consumerist culture.
That was what the human spirit had turned into.’
Aiming this particularly at clothing does nudge towards the expulsion from Eden when Adam and Eve were found ashamed of their nakedness. As the novel progresses, Eve drops much of this tone as she sees the ways life takes people in unexpected directions and so much of ourselves is forged in a society that is pushing towards our own destruction. She has a vision midway through the novel where she begins to reflect on our purer selves that are lost in the world and, finally, is able to give empathy to those she had detested.
‘They’d always been there, I thought blearily, and they’d always wanted to be more than they were. They should always be thought of as individuals, I saw. Each person, fully grown, was sick or sad, with problems attached to them like broken limbs. Each one had special needs.’
One particularly positive aspect of the novel is the way the youth attempt to form a sustainable society. Millet does well to demonstrate that a union with the land in which one does not take more than it can give is a way forward. She avoids the eco-fascist approach that ‘humans are the cancer’ which ignores indigenous groups and societies that have managed to care for the environment in a productive manner and instead focuses her criticism on those who abuse the land and harm the environment. There is a championing of the human spirit in those who are able to adapt and find better, more efficient ways in living. This is once again juxtaposed with the adult group who cannot strip themselves of a life that is never coming back. The parents attempt to continue their job over Skype meetings (oh if only Millet knew it would have been Zoom) and fall into despair wanting to return to their normal. It is an interesting point being made in a book coming out pre-COVID but released as Americans were so divided over reopening the economy despite a pandemic still looming.
Despite a few misgivings, A Children’s Bible is quite an exciting and enjoyable novel. The relationship between Eve and her brother adds a tender heart amidst a dark and chaotic story, and there is a depth that makes for an enjoyable dive textually and a fast-moving plot that has one surprise after the next. Think [b:Lord of the Flies|7624|Lord of the Flies|William Golding|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1327869409l/7624._SY75_.jpg|2766512] meets [b:The Road|6288|The Road|Cormac McCarthy|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1600241424l/6288._SY75_.jpg|3355573]. I enjoyed this one, though I feel that Octavia Butler made better use of some of these themes in [b:Parable of the Sower|41161349|Parable of the Sower (Earthseed, #1)|Octavia E. Butler|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1676133792l/41161349._SY75_.jpg|59258], though the interplay between generations in this one was really thought provoking and entertaining. This is a book that will especially hit home right now as we are all still navigating a pandemic.
3 / 5
jessuh27's review against another edition
dark
reflective
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.0