End of The World Book Reading Club

All posts tagged End of The World Book Reading Club

Artificial Wisdom

Posted by cat2002116 on August 3, 2024
Posted in: Books, End of The World Book Reading Club, Reviews, Science Fiction. Tagged: , , , . Leave a comment

This was another book I received through the End of the World Reading Club…and I was immediately intrigued by the cover and the blurb. Given the content of the book, it felt like it fit very well with the current affairs of the world.

Given I was reading this book during the summer, when it was quite hot, the heatwave in the book that killed millions felt like it could really happen.

Tully was a character who I was quickly able to empathise with, given how he was suffering from the loss of his wife and unborn child…and had had no chance of finding her body, until the mysterious whistleblower who reached out with footage from the tabkhir that had devastated the Persian Gulf.

While I was able to empathise with Tully really well, and gradually learned about Livia, I have to say that Lottie and Randall weren’t really developed to the extent that other characters were.

I thought that the whole murder mystery part of this book worked really well. It was really good to follow along in the investigation with Tully and October…but I have to say, I really didn’t like October as a character. I know she and everyone else said that the Floating States had different laws, but from an ethical standpoint, I felt that a lot of her actions were very questionable.

One of the things I really liked about this book was the description of the technology used in the world. While it was clearly futuristic, it felt like the technology was close to the kind of technology that exists now.

I liked the whole backdrop of the election, with the human running against the AI. I found Solomon a little bland as a character, to be honest. I guess that made sense, considering the fact he was an AI, but I would have liked a bit more about him…especially his relationship with Martha, who was effectively his mother, as she was the one who created him.

I mentioned that the murder mystery aspect of the book was really good, and I was really engaged with it…until the end of the book. I thought things made sense…and then it was like the rug was pulled out from under me with a random, ‘No, it wasn’t this at all!’ Without going into too much detail…I felt the ending was pretty meh.

On the whole, the book was easy to read. The main characters were engaging and well-written, even if some of the secondary characters felt a bit flat. And I definitely felt that the ending didn’t need an extra ‘twist’. But I am glad I was able to read this book, and while it isn’t something I’d read again, it was definitely intriguing for an initial read-through.

Not Alone

Posted by cat2002116 on June 25, 2024
Posted in: Apocalyptic, Books, End of The World Book Reading Club, Reviews. Tagged: , , , . 1 Comment

I love the fact that I now have a new book coming every month…a book that I have no idea what it will be, other than the genre of apocalyptic/dystopian. Unfortunately, I missed the initial delivery of this book, so I had to avoid spoilers for what was in the box until I could get the rearranged delivery.

When I opened the box, I was immediately drawn in by the front cover. The blurb succeeded in piquing my interest even more, as I’m always kind of a sucker for reunion stories…and more so when they have an apocalyptic style setting.

The stronges part of this book was definitely the relationship between Katie and her son, Harry. However, I did feel like Katie’s decision not to tell him the real truth…and let him think there were ‘nasties’…made things so much more difficult. Children tend to understand a lot more than they’re given credit for, and what Harry’s imagination came up with was clearly much worse than the truth, given that he wasn’t that scared when Katie finally told him the truth.

I did find the constant flashbacks to before the storm a bit jarring and not really necessary. I guess those did a good job of showing that Katie was stuck in the Before and not able to embrace the new world, despite being forced to live in it…which is also understandable, since every breath she takes exposes her lungs to the toxic fumes of the air.

Katie’s struggles to breathe and her constant chest pain gave a kind of urgency to this book that didn’t really feel like it translated to the long descriptions of her driving the car along deserted roads, or walking with Harry. I felt that some parts of the book really dragged, while others rushed by too fast.

I did feel bad for poor Harry, who was wrenched from everything he knew and was thrust into a complete unknown. His reactions to being carried out of his safe space made a whole lot of sense, especially when he ended up getting motion sick from being in the car for the first time. The poor kid was actually pretty resilient, compared to how a lot of children his age would be.

I did feel that this book was pretty hopeless and depressing to read. It wasn’t easy…but that was the whole point of the book, really. It wasn’t a nice, easy read because the world the characters were in wasn’t a nice or an easy one. I just kind of wish that the multiple flashbacks hadn’t been included, as they pulled me out of the book.

On the whole, I felt this book was worth reading…but it isn’t something I would really want to read again. I recommend giving it a try, at least.

Cold People

Posted by cat2002116 on June 9, 2024
Posted in: Apocalyptic, Books, End of The World Book Reading Club, Reviews, Science Fiction. Tagged: , , , , , , , . Leave a comment

I was very excited to read this book, as I joined The End of the World Book Reading Club, and this was my first box with the book and several small gifts to open throughout the book…all of which I thought was a pretty awesome idea.

When I read the blurb on the back of the book, I was immediately intrigued. The idea of an alien invasion and people having to travel to Antarctica to survive immediately caught my attention…and I actually really liked the beginning of the book. I really enjoyed viewing the first sighting of Antarctica through the eyes of Ui, a man from two thousand years ago with no knowledge of science, or technology. I especially liked the visual of the ice blocks as clouds, either falling from the sky into the water, or rising up from the water to become clouds in the sky.

I will say that I’m not really a fan of the instant love connection between two characters, so seeing that between Atto and Liza kind of put me off reading the book a bit. I did like the sudden, abrupt chaos of the alien ships appearing in the sky and giving the deadline to humans about thirty days to reach Antarctica. That definitely gave an air of urgency to the book…and as people attempted to flee the city and get to the airports, I could definitely feel the panic and that sense of trying to save your own family, with nothing left to help any of the others who were in the same, or perhaps worse, situations.

I liked the whole buildup of humans trying to reach Antarctica before the deadline given by the aliens, but I was extremely disappointed by the abrupt timeskip of twenty years once they actually got there. Learning, adapting and surviving to life in the extreme cold would have been a really good way of worldbuilding and character development…and I kind of felt robbed of that by the timeskip. I also found it really hard to have characters introduced in the present day, only to abruptly skip back twenty years to how they handled the alien invasion and got to Antartica. There was a lot of jumping backwards and forwards that made the book hard to read at times.

I also think that the book could have done without the focus on the science experiments. It felt like there were two different ideas/plots going on in this book, but neither were given enough room to develop properly.

On the whole, I couldn’t really engage with this book as much as I would have liked to. There was too much going on and too many random jumps for characters I didn’t get the chance to know. I will say that I loved the gifts I received with the book, and I definitely plan to continue the subscription as long as I can afford to. Hopefully, I will enjoy the next book better!