Naiche A. (Naiche) reviewed on 10/5/2007 + 91 more book reviews

Helpful Score: 7

I know it's wildly popular, but I hated this book. I found the premise completely unbelievable - anything that could concievably kill off plant life on Earth would have killed humans long before, and even if plants were killed, there would be generations' worth of mushrooms and other decay organisms to eat. The language was suppossed to be compelling in its simplicity, but I just found it stilted and bathetic. The father was suppossed to be a tough survivor, but what kind of idiot can't stay warm in a forest full of dead trees to burn?

And this may be a pet peeve, but it struck me as creepy that the author postulates killing all life on the entire planet, and then focuses on getting this one little boy to survive. He doesn't touch on anything other than *human* deaths, and the characters don't even seem to notice that every other living thing is gone too, or miss any aspect of the natural world (except for a briefly mentioned family dog). Don't get me wrong - I value human life way above anything else - but to completely ignore the fact that whatever happened (however implausible it may be) killed an entire world of richly diverse species that would also like very much to survive is a wierd ommission.

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