Thank you to Sourcebooks Landmark and NetGalley for providing me with an egalley of this title to read and review. The opinions expressed here are my own.
The blurb for this book drew me right in. Dystopian? Check! A little romance? Check! Male narrator? Check! I was excited to see what it was all about. Plus the blurb was giving me Seeking a Friend for the End of the World movie vibes and I really enjoyed that film.
I want to let the author know that I loved how he took his own experiences with work and sewed them into this book. I loved that he had that first hand knowledge and was able to use it to build his main character's personality. It made the character much more authentic and real. I was able to connect with this character so well as he was flawed in ways that were concrete and genuine. He wasn't a super hero and he knew it. He was straight forward about who he was and what he could do. But despite his flaws, he still put himself out there and tried his hardest to be better and do better.
The other characters were developed well. I loved all the different personalities Wassmer wove into the book. It was really important to the theme he created. And he used so much humor in a situation that was quite dire. I definitely had laugh out loud moments. But the author was also able to create a lot of tension between the characters. And he demonstrated well how each character played off the others emotions and reactions.
The theme of the sun exploding and the characters' world coming to an end gave the book a very tense feel. This is not the first book I've read these past months that has taken place on a secluded island. As a matter of fact, it's my fourth. The plot gave an almost Lord of the Flies quality to the book. A testament to what humans will do when put into a position where they must defend themselves and their lives against other humans. The book dug down to basic human needs.
The pacing in this book was hard for me. If there was something I didn't like about the book it was that. This being Wassmer's first book I wasn't sure what to expect. Overall, he did a good job moving the book along. However, I did find it a bit slow. And while I liked the characters and the theme, I didn't feel an extreme pull to continuously have it in hand to see what would happen. It dragged a bit after the first 20% or so. I will say the last 25% really picked up and I tore through that much more quickly than the rest of the book.
The twist was great. I did know there would be one somewhere. There had to be. But I wasn't sure how it would play out and I really loved where the author took it.
Overall, this was a fun story and I'd love to read more from this author in the future.