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A review by kristianawithak
California by Edan Lepucki
5.0
You don't have to have zombies to have a survival story.
Edan Lepucki creates a striking and faceted world in this post-apocalyptic novel. She takes the Margaret Atwood approach and creates a world so plausible it is chilling. California is a story of a husband and wife surviving in the wilderness as settlers. The novel is a slow burn, not in a dragging way, but realistic. Lepucki’s created world unfolds and becomes crisp and clear with each page. It is told through alternating perspectives and memories of the past. Slowly drawing out how this couple came to be and giving glimpses of how America succumbed to its current state.
The characters are robust and their histories are deep. I was worried for them the whole book. There were times Frida seemed naïve, but perhaps that is what hope looks like in the bleakness of the options ahead of her. I liked the frankness of the portrait of marriage. The relationship between Cal and Frida, how their priorities, goals and desires shift – sometimes in conflict with the others – is well told.
The prose is beautiful as is the stark and rich world Lepucki creates.
Edan Lepucki creates a striking and faceted world in this post-apocalyptic novel. She takes the Margaret Atwood approach and creates a world so plausible it is chilling. California is a story of a husband and wife surviving in the wilderness as settlers. The novel is a slow burn, not in a dragging way, but realistic. Lepucki’s created world unfolds and becomes crisp and clear with each page. It is told through alternating perspectives and memories of the past. Slowly drawing out how this couple came to be and giving glimpses of how America succumbed to its current state.
The characters are robust and their histories are deep. I was worried for them the whole book. There were times Frida seemed naïve, but perhaps that is what hope looks like in the bleakness of the options ahead of her. I liked the frankness of the portrait of marriage. The relationship between Cal and Frida, how their priorities, goals and desires shift – sometimes in conflict with the others – is well told.
The prose is beautiful as is the stark and rich world Lepucki creates.