Etiquette For an Apocalypse
By: Anne Mendel
Published by Bracket Press
Release Date: April 22, 2012
Genre: Adult dystopian
276 pages
Buy it on Amazon, IndieBound
This book is marketed as dark comedy, and it's perfectly on the mark; I was laughing out loud from the top of page two. I think the comedy was probably my favorite thing about this book, in fact- because the horrifying plausibility of the plot would be a little much to handle without the humor.
The year is 2020, and after a string of natural disasters, society has been broken down its most simple form, with people doing whatever is necessary to survive. Our heroine, Sophie Cohen, was so very easy for me to identify with; her most defining characteristic in her post-apocalyptic world is her well-rounded toolbox of mommy skills. She is responsible for organizing a small community in her building, and therefore the survival of many of those community members. She is recruited to help with a major political event, mostly because she knows how to positively influence and bring out the best in others (and also because she is surprisingly resourceful, making do when the luxuries of modern living are not available.) She is fiercely protective of all of the members of her family, even when they're behaving in ways that make it hard to like them. She applies the skills of a modern-day successful mother like she might have chosen to live in her crappy, beaten-to-hell world. She is an inspiration to women everywhere who are feeling overwhelmed, overworked, underpaid, and unappreciated. And who sometimes develop food issues.
Fair warning: this book contains objectionable language and adult content. It's an end-of-the-world setting, so people's behavior is probably much more coarse than it would be in our everyday lives. If you're not in a mental space to be okay with something that is rough around the edges, this may not be a good read for you. If you don't mind those things, though, and you could use a good laugh or two, as well as a perspective adjustment, I encourage you to give this one a try.
The year is 2020, and after a string of natural disasters, society has been broken down its most simple form, with people doing whatever is necessary to survive. Our heroine, Sophie Cohen, was so very easy for me to identify with; her most defining characteristic in her post-apocalyptic world is her well-rounded toolbox of mommy skills. She is responsible for organizing a small community in her building, and therefore the survival of many of those community members. She is recruited to help with a major political event, mostly because she knows how to positively influence and bring out the best in others (and also because she is surprisingly resourceful, making do when the luxuries of modern living are not available.) She is fiercely protective of all of the members of her family, even when they're behaving in ways that make it hard to like them. She applies the skills of a modern-day successful mother like she might have chosen to live in her crappy, beaten-to-hell world. She is an inspiration to women everywhere who are feeling overwhelmed, overworked, underpaid, and unappreciated. And who sometimes develop food issues.
Fair warning: this book contains objectionable language and adult content. It's an end-of-the-world setting, so people's behavior is probably much more coarse than it would be in our everyday lives. If you're not in a mental space to be okay with something that is rough around the edges, this may not be a good read for you. If you don't mind those things, though, and you could use a good laugh or two, as well as a perspective adjustment, I encourage you to give this one a try.
Summary from GoodReads:
It’s the 2020 Apocalypse and Sophie Cohen, former social worker turned neighborly drug dealer, must keep her family alive amid those pesky end of the world issues: starvation, earthquakes, plagues, gang violence and alas more starvation.She investigates a serial killing and takes down the sinister emerging power structure while learning to use a pizza box solar oven, bond with her chickens and blast tin cans from the perimeter fence with a Ruger 9MM.
In order to accomplish all this she must find a way to love her mother, accept her daughter’s adulthood and reignite her moribund marriage.
She might discover that a decentralized, consensus driven life—without fossil fuels, iPhones and chocolate éclairs—isn’t the end of the world, after all.
It’s the 2020 Apocalypse and Sophie Cohen, former social worker turned neighborly drug dealer, must keep her family alive amid those pesky end of the world issues: starvation, earthquakes, plagues, gang violence and alas more starvation.She investigates a serial killing and takes down the sinister emerging power structure while learning to use a pizza box solar oven, bond with her chickens and blast tin cans from the perimeter fence with a Ruger 9MM.
In order to accomplish all this she must find a way to love her mother, accept her daughter’s adulthood and reignite her moribund marriage.
She might discover that a decentralized, consensus driven life—without fossil fuels, iPhones and chocolate éclairs—isn’t the end of the world, after all.
.jpg)
.jpg){kind=link}