I don’t know how to start talking about this book, because it provokes many different feelings, shadows. The excellent skills of Zimmerman to evoke deep emotions in the reader are present all the book long.
You get completely absorbed by the story. You can feel the wet grass, the smell of the concrete, the warmth of the blood. Our protagonist, Sara, is… such a tireless, hopeless fighter. Physically and psychologically as well. She gets tortured and mistreated in all possible ways by many of the nasty characters appearing on the thread. She is also sick, physically conditioned, multiplying every single pain in her bones.
She is, though, never willing to give up on her love for others and for life itself. She’s destroyed again and again and resurrects from her ashes like a phoenix. The story is, to me, very sad. I’ve been sad all the time I had the book in my hands. In a good way, actually. I’m not used to getting moved like this by books. I feel curious about the author, and I keep this story in my mind. I just… couldn’t control being sad. How do you do that, Zimmerman?
I didn’t even realize about the apocalypse background, which is a great story, the Sun annihilating any kind of life without warning, like an exhalation from Hell itself. Also, the author makes a deep study and description of human both behaviour and mind. I keep some words in my mind “When you assume someone is evil, you turn them evil.” There’s hard work behind this book, a wide dissertation of our psyche and instincts.
An amazing little insight into our fears, survival intelligence, leadership, forgiveness, redemption and… second chances for who perhaps, wasn’t evil but… lost. Lots of lessons to be learnt from this book. Lots of… burdens to abandon.
You’ll read it in one go, just as I did. One single night was enough to devour this book, characters, story and tragedy.
