Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

I very much disliked this book, although it begins well. The spunky young hero Griz and his loyal dogs are likable; his descriptions of the depopulated post-apocalyptic world, about a hundred years after the event, are intriguing; and the mysterious stranger Brand is compelling enough that I continued reading as much to learn more about him as to see Griz attempt to recover his dog. The thread of simple-minded atheistic philosophizing was distracting, but since it was voiced by the teenaged narrator, I assumed it would be complicated in some interesting way as the novel progressed. Instead, it seems to be the author’s own obsession—how else could he imagine that his grotesque caricature of Christianity could believably motivate the faceless bad guys tacked on to the story in its hurried last chapters? By the way, they are kidnappers, murderers, and rapists who want to recreate the world “as it was,” hence they call themselves “Conservators,” or Cons for short. Yes, really. There’s a foretaste of this early in the story, when Griz and his dog follow a rat into a large church crowded with images of suffering that repel him. “There was too much pain in the statues, too much relish in the way they were made…. It felt like the sculptors had made the statues with a real liking for the hurt of being nailed to that cross. Maybe that’s my ignorance rather than their fault. Maybe loving the pain is a thing that made sense if you believed in invisible things like this god.” Later on Griz finds shelter in a cottage that is opposite in every way: completely intact, with an attached greenhouse filled with wonderful fruits the kid has never tasted before; and inside, it is fully stocked with useful items, including a Victrola on which hears orchestral music for the first time and ragtime. All of this has been deliberately prepared by the couple who lived there and are long dead. They leave a note saying as much, inviting visitors to enjoy the place where they spent so many happy years. And their bones still do! Don’t mind us, we’re upstairs in the bathroom, the note says. Griz goes upstairs and finds the couple in the tub, where they cut their wrists together, surrounded by flowers, candles, and a bottle of wine. Such a good death, no? Maybe to sentimental atheists who say things like, gods are “just stories to make sense of lives of those who wanted someone else to take charge of them, rather than cut their own way.”