A review by jamiee_f
Afterland by Lauren Beukes
2.0
I'm so sad, I loved Lauren Beukes' other work, but this was a SLOG to get through. The plot was muddied by flashbacks and multiple narratives, and the world building was confusing.
I was intrigued by the premise of a pandemic book and this one seemed interesting. However, the "gender plague" details are never well established and it comes off extremely gender essentialist and weird. I don't think the author meant to make a weirdly TERFy plot but a lack of consideration certainly means that's where we ended up.
I also am like....still confused by the post-plague world, and also why the main characters are trying so hard to flee to South Africa. Descriptions of the world oscillate between it being a zombie-apocalypse-esque barren wasteland where you have to siphon gas and weird guns to survive, to quasi socialist utopia where the government will house you and give you a job if you want one, to relatively unchanged city scapes with flourishing tourist attractions. I'm not sure what the world is meant to be like, and it just feels unconsidered.
I was also disappointed with the ending--all this build up and the cross country chase, for it to end with 1) an extremely brief confrontation between sisters and 2) NO information about their life in south africa!!! It felt like hundreds of pages of work for such little pay off, it all just gets handwaved with them seeing some matriarchal killer whales??? Argh
I was intrigued by the premise of a pandemic book and this one seemed interesting. However, the "gender plague" details are never well established and it comes off extremely gender essentialist and weird. I don't think the author meant to make a weirdly TERFy plot but a lack of consideration certainly means that's where we ended up.
I also am like....still confused by the post-plague world, and also why the main characters are trying so hard to flee to South Africa. Descriptions of the world oscillate between it being a zombie-apocalypse-esque barren wasteland where you have to siphon gas and weird guns to survive, to quasi socialist utopia where the government will house you and give you a job if you want one, to relatively unchanged city scapes with flourishing tourist attractions. I'm not sure what the world is meant to be like, and it just feels unconsidered.
I was also disappointed with the ending--all this build up and the cross country chase, for it to end with 1) an extremely brief confrontation between sisters and 2) NO information about their life in south africa!!! It felt like hundreds of pages of work for such little pay off, it all just gets handwaved with them seeing some matriarchal killer whales??? Argh