“Best novel. The big one . . . stands above all the others . . . beautifully written, and wonderfully elegiac, a book that I will long remember, and return to.”

NO MAJOR SPOILERS

I read this book in two days because I had trouble putting it down. It’s a fast, easy read. Even though it is about the aftermath of a pandemic, it is not depressing at all. Ordinary everyday events are recounted, then a notation that the people involved were dead within a few days of the event. The book follows a character for a chapter, then switches to another character in the next chapter.

The author connects different subplots together ingeniously. You don’t see the interconnections between characters until almost the end of the book. The novel felt somewhat like Margaret Atwood’s Oryx and Crake (not the plot, but the tone of the writing). I enjoyed Mendel’s writing and I give this novel 5 stars out of 5. It is a great choice to read while you are waiting out a pandemic at home, which is what I did.

 

Reviewed by:

Tina Lau

Added 26th May 2020