Erin S. (nantuckerin) reviewed on 8/24/2009 + 158 more book reviews

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.

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