I just couldn't put this book down. I usually want to take a few days to read through a book properly, but there was no place that I could do so without wanting to immediately pick up the story again. I liken this story to Resident Evil, but way more interesting. The plague that takes over the world starts big and spreads fast, but it's not a death sentence for everyone. I loved the way the story unfolds, told in the past (approximately 18 months earlier) and in the now. The joining was seamless and enthralled me to the very end. I haven't enjoyed a post-apocalyptic story so much since reading the Wool trilogy by Hugh Howey. The writing style was almost enough to put me off finishing this book. Oddball, jarring metaphors/similes/analogies splat onto the page far too frequently, proving neither insightful nor meaningful. ("He jerks me backwards and pulls me against him until his gut is a stuffed IHOP pancake bulging against my back." Oh?) Fortunately, this kind of thing decreases as the author gets down to telling her story. The THEN/NOW structure worked for me, as did the haziness of the details about "the end of the world," as the heroine refers to it. What didn't work so well was the apparent detachment from the end of the world events that virtually every character exhibits. Admittedly, we know this world only through the narrator's eyes and voice, and for the most part she sounds detached from the story she tells, even when her actions make it clear that the events are significant to her. But what accounts for the mass catatonia/obliviousness/denial/shell-shock of virtually every other character that wanders in and out of the story? The doorman at the heroine's apt building blandly tallies the survivors as the police and ambulance crew remove dead body after dead body, and notes when the number is low enough finally so that the second doorman is no longer needed. Canadian tourists wander NYC streets looking for the former tourist attractions in an affectless haze. For the most part, the end of this world appears to come not only without a bang, but without even a whimper.
What do You think about Bílý Kůň (2012)?
I liked this book, and would have given it 4 stars but the ending was tied up too neatly for me.
—tiffany
Good writing. Horrifying. Too much horror and not enough redemption.
—Nataliya
Really nice book. The ending was great for me.
—Holly
