The End of Everything by Katie Mack

The End of Everything by Katie Mack
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Overall, I enjoyed this book though it was a bit uneven- slow and somewhat difficult in parts and very engaging in other parts . At times it felt like more of a philosophy book which is something I particularly enjoyed. Definitely not a good place to start if you haven't read layman physics books before. (I'd recommend starting with Brian Green and Stephen Hawkins.) But this is a nice addition of you have a general understanding of the basics.

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Wanderers by Chuck Wendig

Wanderers by Chuck Wendig
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Definitely fun but unnecessarily rapey in parts. Lots of great distinct characters, no plot holes, riveting throughout. Still, I would recommend it if you love apocalypse books (I do) but not otherwise.

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Warm Bodies by Isaac Marion

Warm Bodies by Isaac Marion
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Very fun zombie romance book. The beginning was particularly interesting and thoughtful, but it dragged a bit as it entered adventure book territory, and the end was unsatisfying.

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The Road by Cormac McCarthy

The Road by Cormac McCarthy
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

A few authors sit down to try to say something about the experience of life and some try to capture a little bit of what God is in their writing. For me, very few succeed in both endeavors. So far, I've only found The End of the Affair, Gilead, and The Road. (My other favorite book is The Death of Ivan Ilyich, but it's not about God.) Please let me know if you know of other books in this class.

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The End of the World Running Club by Adrian J. Walker

The End of the World Running Club by Adrian J. Walker
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I didn't love the beginning, and not because of the characters as a lot of other reviewers remarked. I thought the characters were pretty realistic and sufficiently decent people to rally behind. Rather, it was the lack of unique action that was getting me down in what seemed to be an action book. However, once they got to the running, I started to appreciate the literary elements of the book, and by the end of the book, I was into it. It wasn't a "for fun" book for me, and it wasn't fully literary, but I think it had a good payout for being a combo of genres.

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Holy Bible: New International Version

Holy Bible: New International Version by Anonymous


I started at the beginning of the year and it took about an hour a day for 8 months. Sometimes I'd skip a few days, but then sometimes I would do 2 hours to make up for falling behind. The Old Testament is much longer obviously and I think I made it feel even longer by reading The New Testament's Gospels, The Old Testament, and then the rest of the New Testament. I spent 6 of the 8 months on the Old Testament and only 2 months on the New Testament.

A few thoughts on the Old Testament, it's very long, and I think there's a lot of merit in the Jewish tradition of focusing on the first five books (the Torah). Genesis and Exodus are particularly interesting. [Repeat from my Tanakh review:] Much of the rest of the Old Testament is wars and God getting angry for his worshippers breaking rules, especially marrying those of other religions. A few notable exceptions: Song of Songs is very romantic, Jonah is the stuff of great adventure books, and the locusts are as scary as a Steven King novel.

As for the New Testament, the Gospels are really interesting, in particular, the Gospel of Matthew. Not to be outdone by the locusts in the Old Testament, Revelation is some scary stuff.

Since I finished the Bible in less than a year, I'm going to try to read nonfiction books about the Bible for the rest of the year.


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Good Omens by Terry Pratchett

Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman 
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

Can a book be bad and pointless, and still kind of cute? If so, this is that book. It's a cross between The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy and The Screwtape Letters with a lot of British humor and snarkiness. It's not very three-dimensional though. The only somewhat developed characters were the demon Crowley, the angel Aziraphale, and the Adam and his friends. I enjoyed them. The other characters were extremely flat and pointless. The ending went on and on. I don't recommend the book but if they ever make a holiday movie of this, I'll definitely go. Haha.

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The Leftovers by Tom Perrotta

The Leftovers by Tom Perrotta
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I read this because I love the HBO television show based on the book. The first season remained very loyal to the book with some exceptions. I loved seeing the characters from a more interior view, especially Nora. The only reason I only gave this 4 stars instead of 5 is that we don't have a complete ending more an allusion to an ending, and I'd love to read a sequel and not just more television seasons, though I'm excited for that too.

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On the Beach by Nevil Shute

On the Beach by Nevil Shute
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Truly horrifying account of a slow apocalyptic end to humanity. It has stayed with me for many years now.

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Zone One by Colson Whitehead

Zone One by Colson Whitehead
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Fabulous scathing critique of all the preoccupations of society. Very nihilistic. I loved the main character and the way his challenges before and after the last day were presented. I felt like I could relate to him and his problems even though he's a very emotionally reserved character. I also loved Gary and Kaitlyn, and how they were awful and wonderful in their own ways. Some of the last 1/5th of the book was a little convoluted with the present day conversations of numerous characters that didn't play a central role.


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Left Behind by Tim LaHaye, Jerry B. Jenkins

Left Behind by Tim LaHaye, Jerry B. Jenkins
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

Clearly, this isn't literary fiction, so I wasn't judging it based on great writing. It's all plot plot plot, but I thought it was off to a good start with an exciting start right at the beginning of the apocalypse with the rapture. I love the television adaptation of Tom Perrota's The Leftovers (though I haven't read that book yet) and the beginning of this book had a lot of similarities so I was psyched.

However, about halfway through the book, the author gave up on any attempt at character development or even-handed consideration of people that don't share his religious views. One of the main characters, now a convert, constantly berates himself for "thinking he was so smart" and missing the message of Christianity. Besides being needlessly offensive to nonbelievers, he misses the point of his own plot. If the rapture happened, then there would be some evidence of the truth of Christianity- perhaps not logically definitive evidence- but certainly enough that many nonbelievers could take the leap. Yes, they might berate themselves for not having taken a leap of faith sooner, but I doubt they would take on such embarrassing views against intellectualism if they didn't already hold such views.

Here's another example. The brief discussion of abortion is deeply unthoughtful. Even if, hypothetically, abortion providers were motivated by money instead of the right of women to bodily autonomy and medical treatment (the premise of the conversation in the book), that wouldn't explain all the non-abortion provider pro-choice people. The suggestion that being pro-choice somehow makes you desire great quantities of abortions is not thoughtful or empathetic to people who don't share the author's views, and that makes the characters poorly developed. Most pro-choice people I know would support policies that would keep women from wanting or needing abortions but are opposed to policies that restrict medical decisions and ultimately put women, including some who are already mothers, in jail. This part really ruins the book for me even more than all the other bad writing.

Also, the whole UN plan is nonsense. I guess that we've all learned the hard way that if a personality is sufficiently charismatic to some that person can push through nonsense policies but this has never been successful on a worldwide basis to date.

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The War of the Worlds by H.G. Wells

The War of the Worlds by H.G. Wells
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This is a fun apocalypse narrative. It's written in such a way that it makes perfect sense that people listening to it on the radio thought it was real. The ending seems a little weak in terms of believability but keeps the story fairly enjoyable.

The most amazing part is that this was written in the 1890s before human aviation.

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One Second After by William R. Forstchen

One Second After by William R. Forstchen
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This was both realistic and terribly horrifying. Basically, it's time to start accumulating canned foods, medicines, guns, and bullets for the end of days. Good luck, y'all.

This author is very pro-history, pro-military, pro-militia, and pro-infrastructure preparedness. He makes an extremely convincing case for all these.

Read this! And if we get hit by an electromagnetic pulse apocalypse please share some of your food with me because I told you about the book.

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