Really great writing, the book took me there. It offers natural settings and wonderful descriptions of them: plants, animals, the sea, the terrain, the sky. For the two main characters, Mary and Rachel, many terrible events occur along the way to surviving the end of the world. These two, of different generations and complete strangers, are nevertheless alike in ways that can't help but make you like them and wish them well. They are rational, resourceful, courageous, kind women. The story turns not on their survival, which seems assured, but on their encounter with an extremist Christian group (led by a charismatic but crazy doctor). They try hard to find common ground with these people, the only other survivors they encounter.

I did not like the interweaving of early events with those of later decades, back and forth, back and forth in time. It seemed unnecessary. Without that clunky organization, I would have given the book the whole five stars.

Download File Size:6.65 MB

---