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A review by mikkiokko
Prophet Song by Paul Lynch
dark
emotional
informative
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
5.0
This is an excellent book.
I liked how closely this book followed and focused on a civilian in a dystopian. By that I mean that we never fully learn what the regime(s) want or espouses, what we see instead is mostly how it affects one family and especially one woman. In fact, most of the book takes place within their home which makes the unraveling of everything in the world feel so personal. With it all taking place so close it also helps to communicate the difficulty in leaving home when there is terror. I feel like that is a concept often lost in dystopian or war fiction, and even in the news. Often when we see a crisis, a war, a genocide, etc. people on the outside say "Well, just leave. Flee." without grasping how difficult that really is, and I think that this book realizes that truth greatly.
I am extremely intrigued to see how this book continues to fit itself into the world as time moves on because while this book speaks urgent truths about current matters like the genocide of Gaza, it is also a book that directly says it is timeless. It calls out the fact that anything like its plot can happen at anytime and how foolish it is to think that someone's world is not always ending. It is truly timeless, an impressive feat.
Some favorite quotes:
(I'll blur them, not because they are major spoilers, but just in case you'd like to save them for yourself)
History is a silent record of people who could not leave, it is a record of those who did not have a choice, you cannot leave when you have nowhere to go and have not the means to go there, you cannot leave when your children cannot get a passport, cannot go when your feet are rooted in the earth and to leave means tearing off your feet.
...and the prophet sings not of the end of the world but of what has been done and what will be done and what is being done to some but not others, that the world is always ending over and over again in one place but not another and that the end of the world is always a local event, it comes to your country and visits your town and knocks on the door of your house and becomes to others but some distant warning, a brief report on the news, an echo of events that has passed into folklore,...
I liked how closely this book followed and focused on a civilian in a dystopian. By that I mean that we never fully learn what the regime(s) want or espouses, what we see instead is mostly how it affects one family and especially one woman. In fact, most of the book takes place within their home which makes the unraveling of everything in the world feel so personal. With it all taking place so close it also helps to communicate the difficulty in leaving home when there is terror. I feel like that is a concept often lost in dystopian or war fiction, and even in the news. Often when we see a crisis, a war, a genocide, etc. people on the outside say "Well, just leave. Flee." without grasping how difficult that really is, and I think that this book realizes that truth greatly.
I am extremely intrigued to see how this book continues to fit itself into the world as time moves on because while this book speaks urgent truths about current matters like the genocide of Gaza, it is also a book that directly says it is timeless. It calls out the fact that anything like its plot can happen at anytime and how foolish it is to think that someone's world is not always ending. It is truly timeless, an impressive feat.
Some favorite quotes:
(I'll blur them, not because they are major spoilers, but just in case you'd like to save them for yourself)
...and the prophet sings not of the end of the world but of what has been done and what will be done and what is being done to some but not others, that the world is always ending over and over again in one place but not another and that the end of the world is always a local event, it comes to your country and visits your town and knocks on the door of your house and becomes to others but some distant warning, a brief report on the news, an echo of events that has passed into folklore,...