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A review by antimony
Walk the Vanished Earth by Erin Swan
reflective
slow-paced
- Loveable characters? No
2.0
i really wanted to like this — I was hoping for something sorta like station eleven, showing the beauty of humanity despite the postapocalyptic setting, but instead I got a (boring) treatise on how We Must Repopulate The Earth Because Pregnancy Is A Miracle!!!!!!!! also it dragged in the first half so I put it down for a week to read my interlibrary loans and the only thing I felt upon picking it up at the end of said week was dread at the boredom returning. so.
the thing that really drove me crazy abt this book was not that it was boring. there were a few interesting things and if it had just been boring I would have given it three stars but alas! instead almost every character was obsessed with how The Miracle Of Childbirth = The Miracle of Womanhood = Destiny!!!! and like just sliding past how simplistic of a view that is I just did not like reading about it. maybe a mom would appreciate it, idk, but I do not like Repopulating Humanity just as a theme in general. it's very unpleasant like maybe humanity doesn't NEED to be repopulated?? and it always takes a higher roll on women. but then again many of the women in this book seem delighted to just incubate The Future of Humanity and I just don't like reading that!!! (if this review feels unfairly focused on penelope's storyline that's bc it's most of what I read after my break and the stuff before the break is so far away as to be of no consequence. but the first half was probably 3 stars anyway.) like penelope is abt to have her daughter and BEFORE SHES EVEN BORN is saying to her You My Daughter Are Destined To Populate The Land and the question of what if said daughter never wants to destroy her body in service of Populating The Land is never considered.
bare minimum i did enjoy that Moon decided NOT to Populate The Land and continue the society (bc her uncles were SOO icky anyway. so thank god) but STJLLL she still heard her whole life that it was her Destiny. overall I did not enjoy this book sorry!!!!
the thing that really drove me crazy abt this book was not that it was boring. there were a few interesting things and if it had just been boring I would have given it three stars but alas! instead almost every character was obsessed with how The Miracle Of Childbirth = The Miracle of Womanhood = Destiny!!!! and like just sliding past how simplistic of a view that is I just did not like reading about it. maybe a mom would appreciate it, idk, but I do not like Repopulating Humanity just as a theme in general. it's very unpleasant like maybe humanity doesn't NEED to be repopulated?? and it always takes a higher roll on women. but then again many of the women in this book seem delighted to just incubate The Future of Humanity and I just don't like reading that!!! (if this review feels unfairly focused on penelope's storyline that's bc it's most of what I read after my break and the stuff before the break is so far away as to be of no consequence. but the first half was probably 3 stars anyway.) like penelope is abt to have her daughter and BEFORE SHES EVEN BORN is saying to her You My Daughter Are Destined To Populate The Land and the question of what if said daughter never wants to destroy her body in service of Populating The Land is never considered.
bare minimum i did enjoy that Moon decided NOT to Populate The Land and continue the society (bc her uncles were SOO icky anyway. so thank god) but STJLLL she still heard her whole life that it was her Destiny. overall I did not enjoy this book sorry!!!!
Content Warnings
Graphic: Pregnancy
Moderate: Incest