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whirl's review against another edition
dark
emotional
hopeful
reflective
sad
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
4.0
The description of the start of the pandemic are a bit too spot on now that there has been a pandemic.. although it really highlights how lucky we’ve been that covid-19 was much less deadly!
The book has a nice pace, and just ambles through the lives of various survivors loosely connected to each other before the pandemic hits
The book has a nice pace, and just ambles through the lives of various survivors loosely connected to each other before the pandemic hits
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death and Grief
Moderate: Ableism, Violence, and Kidnapping
Minor: Child death, Gun violence, Sexual assault, Suicidal thoughts, Death of parent, and Murder
While the book describes a post apocalyptic world which is clearly more lawless and violent, it doesn’t go into unnecessarily detailed descriptions and is more about what happens to people’s minds and personality to live in such a world_fallinglight_'s review against another edition
challenging
dark
reflective
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
1.5
Only stuck with it to the end bc I found out there's going to be a limited tv series and I wanted to see why people think so highly of this book and I'm completely at a loss bc I DON'T GET IT. Easily one of the worst decisions I've made reading wise. It's got a huge Stephen King vibe except this book is so boring it's criminal! It's the end of the world through the eyes of privileged, first world middle-upper class people that I didn't give one f%ck about. (which is probably why this book and now many dystopias have me side eyeing them bc I read a tweet (can't find it anymore and don't remember the author:( some while ago that said dystopias are basically white and/or privileged people's fears of things to come that actually have been the reality for colonized, poor and disadvantaged Black and POC for hundreds of years. I honestly hadn't seen it that way and well now I'm having difficulty with these books especially with this one that was so bad!) It was aiming for some grand scale philosophical poignancy that I'm most likely too dumb to get or it was such a fail on the author's part bc this book is a colossal waste of time. I hated it.
The only parts I can't hate bc they were kinda decently done were Jeevan's subplot and the fallout of the pandemic which was so eerie to read right now. But everything else was atrocious. The characters are not interesting. They are flat and lifeless as hell I didn't care for any of them at all. The prophet thing was added to shit on religion only bc it didn't add much else and was easily dismissed like nothing. And what was that about referring to most of the characters by the instruments they play? The few ideas or subplots that might have flourished this book were lackadaisical and left incomplete. But what honestly bugged me the most was how improbable everything felt to me. Not the disease or whatever but the aftermath. This book basically treated humanity like unthinking husks who will just sit by and let everything rot and die bc “omg we no longer have twitter!!! How will we ever be able to communicate and thrive and live without it?!?!?” Which makes this book annoyingly very fiction and to me very unrealistic in the human ingenuity aspect and not what I signed up for. (ok so it didn't want to be a hopeful book for the most part but girl, humans are stubborn and really do think and create and recreate even the worst of people. Unless of course it was aiming at critiquing our dependence to technology and that we fell away from our hunting-gathering roots and capitalism has us f*cked up but I don't think that's what she was going for lol)
I thought I was gonna be in my feelings reading this, the characters and plot were gonna feel surreal bc hey! I'm in the middle of a pandemic too and well...Just not a good book for me. I honestly can't believe this is gonna have a tv adaptation.
The only parts I can't hate bc they were kinda decently done were Jeevan's subplot and the fallout of the pandemic which was so eerie to read right now. But everything else was atrocious. The characters are not interesting. They are flat and lifeless as hell I didn't care for any of them at all. The prophet thing was added to shit on religion only bc it didn't add much else and was easily dismissed like nothing. And what was that about referring to most of the characters by the instruments they play? The few ideas or subplots that might have flourished this book were lackadaisical and left incomplete. But what honestly bugged me the most was how improbable everything felt to me. Not the disease or whatever but the aftermath. This book basically treated humanity like unthinking husks who will just sit by and let everything rot and die bc “omg we no longer have twitter!!! How will we ever be able to communicate and thrive and live without it?!?!?” Which makes this book annoyingly very fiction and to me very unrealistic in the human ingenuity aspect and not what I signed up for. (ok so it didn't want to be a hopeful book for the most part but girl, humans are stubborn and really do think and create and recreate even the worst of people. Unless of course it was aiming at critiquing our dependence to technology and that we fell away from our hunting-gathering roots and capitalism has us f*cked up but I don't think that's what she was going for lol)
I thought I was gonna be in my feelings reading this, the characters and plot were gonna feel surreal bc hey! I'm in the middle of a pandemic too and well...Just not a good book for me. I honestly can't believe this is gonna have a tv adaptation.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Ableism, Alcoholism, Chronic illness, Death, Rape, Sexual assault, Suicide, Medical content, Religious bigotry, Pregnancy, and Injury/Injury detail
Minor: Death of parent
renwah's review against another edition
funny
mysterious
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
i liked the coincidences that threaded this book together, but i felt like it didn't balance the gritty realism of Post Pandemic Apocalypse and the magical thinking of the plot very well. This book really lost me at the point where Frank decides to die rather than try to face the rest of the world alone. It felt like it was saying that disabled people have no place in the apocalypse, when there are plenty of people who are small children who make it through, and there's a whole string of Highly Unlikely coincidences that lead to the camp at the airport entirely escaping the virus. It's not even played as a regret that Jeevan has--never for a second is he like "maybe I, a paramedic who's supposed to want to help people, should have told my brother not to commit suicide or something." It's taken for granted that Some People aren't allowed to pass through to be a core part of the plot where others can be. It really soured me on the book after that point.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Ableism