AUTHOR: Lauren Beukes
Disclaimer: I got an uncorrected, advanced review copy of this book, written by one of my favorite authors.
I love Beukes' writing and this is certainly well written, typos aside (I had to resist pulling out a red pen to make corrections!) The plot is simple. In the not-too-distant future, a virus has killed 90 per cent or so of Earth's male population. Cole's twelve-year-old son is one of the exceptions. Now, after three years stuck in an American facility where scientists are doing research on Miles and a few other surviving males, Cole and her son -- disguised as a girl -- are on the run, trying to get back home to South Africa, with the authorities and Cole's own sister, Billie, in pursuit.
The science fiction elements are mostly downplayed, giving background and context to what is basically a feminist suspense/family drama story. Chapters alternate between Cole's, Miles', and Billie's point of views, while also alternating, early on, between the past and the present. Billie has made a deal with a devil as concerns her nephew, so the suspense comes mainly from wondering what will happen if/when Billie catches up with Cole and Miles. Filling out the story are the wide array of women they all come across on their journey across America, with a religious cult taking center stage in the back half of the book when Cole and Miles, using the name Mila, seek shelter with the Church of All Sorrows, which preaches that if women will repent and do God's work, God will bring back men.
I wanted to give this book more than three stars, but given the current pandemic -- a bit earlier and unexpected than Beukes bet on, I would imagine -- the backstory seems quaint and outdated. And while I always enjoy an exploration of an imagined future as it's experienced by individual characters, this is really about two sisters at odds and a mother dealing with a son hitting the trauma of the teenage years. In a way, the story feels too small for the premise; I enjoyed it, but I wanted it to be more.
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