Andrew Smith's Reviews > Afterland

I was worried about picking up a book centred on a pandemic, I mean the timing is interesting isn’t it. But two things quickly became clear:

1. The pandemic here is different - it only kills men
2. The whole thing feels completely tongue-in-cheek and is impossible to take seriously

Cole and her son Miles escape a camp in California set up to protect and exploit some of the few remaining males - semen is gold. We’re not yet clear on the details but it seems that during the escape Cole may have killed her sister, Billie.

Young Miles become Mila (i.e. he takes on the identity of a girl) as they make a Wacky Races style run for Canada, or maybe somewhere else if that won’t work. The early scenes are actually pretty good aided by flashbacks that allow us a glimpse of their previous lives and how the pandemic got a hold. And now we learn that Billie is alive (barely) and in hot pursuit.

Early on, my issue was that I found the exchanges between Cole and Miles/Mila irritating: the attempts at humour in their banter failed to hit the mark for me and the whole mood of the dialogue just felt off. I battled on, but when I came to a section where the pair became part of a travelling circus of saviour nuns I began to skim and soon after that I gave up at around two-thirds of my way through the book.

In truth, I’m not sure what audience this book is aimed at – young adults perhaps? And maybe I'm just struggling to see the funny side of a pandemic at the moment (my bad if that's the case!). Either way, this story definitely wasn’t what I was expecting and though I had a decent go at working through it I’d actually been tempted to set it aside from quite early on. Sorry, this one really wasn’t my cup of tea.

My thanks to Penguin UK and NetGalley for providing a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.