Rating: 4 Stars
In this post-apocalyptic story, A Boy and His Dog at the End of the World by C. A. Fletcher, the reader is treated to a story in the vain of Station Eleven. Since I had recently read Station Eleven and loved it, I was very excited to finally have time to read this one. While I could draw a lot of similarities between the two stories, the themes of this book are loyalty, courage and family.
In this future post-apocalyptic story, most of the entire human race has died and of the few left most are not able to reproduce, further dwindling the numbers to the thousands. The main character, Griz, lives with his family on a small island off the coast of the UK totally cut off from what is left of humanity, except for a small family that lives on a nearby island. It has been years since they have had contact with other people.
Then one day a red sail appears on the horizon. The boat is maned by a lone trader. He is young, charming and enchants the family with his tales of travel. While he expounds upon his adventures, he also poisons them and in the dead of the night he sneaks off with Jess, Griz’s dog. Female dogs are rare and therefore she is valuable. Enraged, Griz takes off after him in his own boat. This leads him into an adventure he was not prepared for.
As with Station Eleven, this book it is not a hard-core Science Fiction tale but, as stated earlier, it is about loyalty and family and what binds us together. There is not a lot of action in the story though the plot moves nicely. In addition, the entire story is told from Griz’s POV through a journal he has kept. This allows the author to reflect on the themes of the book and present his idea of what humanity would be become after a mega disaster. The author pulls no punches in presenting the bad side of humanity. In fact, I think he was kind on humans. He could have made it so much worse.
The story is very compelling and the author spends a lot of time on character development, at least with the main character. So you really get to know Griz, which sets you up for the big plot twist at the end. I totally did not see that coming. Also, while the story was rather bleak in terms of the fate of humanity the author presents a case for hope and shows there will always be good in the world. By the end, I was full of conflicting emotions and had to noodle on it before writing this review.
This would be a great story for a book club because there is a lot of thought-provoking themes explored in this book. The prose was excellent and though the scope of the plot was ambitious it worked well within the confines of the story. I recommend this book to anyone who likes reflective stories regardless of what genre they fit into.