Helpful Score: 2
The Suicide Collectors is a good book full of horrible things. I mulled it over, and that's really the only way to describe it.
In Oppegaard's dystopian world, the entire planet has been gripped by an epidemic called The Despair. Ninety percent of the Earth's population has committed suicide in the past five years since the "disease" started to spread, leaving the remaining survivors left to deal with the crumbling society and the most ominous force of all -- the Suicide Collectors, shrouded figures that appear to collect the bodies of those that have died in The Despair.
The premise of this book is right up my alley -- I love a good disaster/end-of-the-world story, and this one is very original. But I had a hard time getting through it at times because of some of the stark horrors Oppegaard hides like Easter eggs throughout the text. They aren't gratuitous -- they really paint a true picture of the atrocities of life in this new world -- but many were hard to deal with. I wouldn't categorize The Suicide Collectors as a horror novel, but it's defininatly not for the squeamish. Rather than drawing attention to the most appauling things in this new world, Oppegaard slides them in casually and without any fanfare, reinforcing the feeling that this is the way the world is now. So deal with it.
I give the book three stars because, for me, personally -- it was a little grim. The ending also made me anxious for the fate of one of my favorite characters rather than hopeful, and that's not the way I like to end a story.
In Oppegaard's dystopian world, the entire planet has been gripped by an epidemic called The Despair. Ninety percent of the Earth's population has committed suicide in the past five years since the "disease" started to spread, leaving the remaining survivors left to deal with the crumbling society and the most ominous force of all -- the Suicide Collectors, shrouded figures that appear to collect the bodies of those that have died in The Despair.
The premise of this book is right up my alley -- I love a good disaster/end-of-the-world story, and this one is very original. But I had a hard time getting through it at times because of some of the stark horrors Oppegaard hides like Easter eggs throughout the text. They aren't gratuitous -- they really paint a true picture of the atrocities of life in this new world -- but many were hard to deal with. I wouldn't categorize The Suicide Collectors as a horror novel, but it's defininatly not for the squeamish. Rather than drawing attention to the most appauling things in this new world, Oppegaard slides them in casually and without any fanfare, reinforcing the feeling that this is the way the world is now. So deal with it.
I give the book three stars because, for me, personally -- it was a little grim. The ending also made me anxious for the fate of one of my favorite characters rather than hopeful, and that's not the way I like to end a story.
Helpful Score: 2
Despair has descended upon the world and with it, mass and individual suicides in staggering numbers, until only small and often deranged and paranoid groups of humans are left. The Collectors come in black robes when suicides occur, and gather the bodies and take them away. Norman encounters the Collectors preparing to take his own wife's body away, and the war is on! One man named Norman against The Source and its Collectors.
This is not a book to pick up at bedtime; you'll be up reading all night and even skip work the next day if you have to, because once it gets your attention, it won't let go.
This is not a book to pick up at bedtime; you'll be up reading all night and even skip work the next day if you have to, because once it gets your attention, it won't let go.
Helpful Score: 1
I'm not sure how to categorize this book: near-future sci fi? Dark fantasy? It has elements of both, but neither really captures it. It is also well-written, fast-paced, inexpressibly weird and creepy, and oddly compelling: a bit like watching a disaster in slow motion. It's hard to watch, but you can't look away.
