A review by omnombailey
The Dog Stars by Peter Heller

adventurous challenging dark sad tense slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.0

I love bleak post-apocalypse stories and I came into this wanting exactly that. For the most part, it delivered, but I couldn't bring myself to say I actually liked this book. There were some enjoyable parts, but it wasn't enough for me to ignore the abysmal writing style and random narrative.

I didn't care for any of the characters, especially Bangley. There's a sad attempt at making him sympathetic, but it boils down to, "Cool story, you're still an asshole." I also had a hard time believing
that Cima was the first woman Hig had seen in NINE YEARS. At least that's what he makes it seem like. That whole side plot with Cima was painful to read and came across as creepy than it ever did as romantic. No sex scene should ever be described as a school of fish or whatever that line was.


The summary of the book makes it sound like the communication from the plane's radio is a huge central thing and... it's not. It gets mentioned at about 15% into the book and maybe brought up again once or twice and then Hig wants to fly out there and
gets distracted by PRETTY LADY for legit 30% of the book
and then he eventually gets there and it's like... what the hell did you expect? I wish it was made more of a deal or at least make it sound as important as the book summary does. It felt like an afterthought.

The writing got in the way more often than not. Sometimes I liked style, but most of the time it made it difficult to tell what was going on and who was saying what. I get what it was trying to do, but it didn't made for a fun or interesting read.

But there were some moments where it was interesting, like any of the flashbacks or imagery in the forest or even the last 15% was pretty solid and I couldn't put it down. But you can't stitch all those sort of good moments to make up a story. Overall, I didn't hate reading this, but I also wouldn't call it a good book or ever recommend it to anyone I know. 
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