All That's Left in the World

I honestly don't know how I feel about this book. It took me quite a while to read - though the fault was only a little on this book.

Okay, so, thoughts:

I'm really not a fan of dystopian books. (Which this book is shelved as.) So, why did I try it? Because I do like after-the-apocalypse type stories. This book is every zombie apocalypse-like, alien invasion-esque panic of what the worst case scenario said that Covid could be.

So yeah, there's a part of me (the same part of me that felt panic for about two weeks when Covid first hit, before I channeled that fear into an idea of a world ending superbug that the US government unleashed on its own citizens. ... I still have that idea in my mind and after reading this book, I want to write it) that liked the sounds of the synopsis because of the whole world ending superbug.

And in truth, I don't dislike the book most of the time. Some things just don't work for me - other things work really well, leaving this book a very mixed bag.

This book is told in rotating first person perspective. I am not really a fan of first person perspective in the best of times, but I truly dislike it when it's a rotating POV and there's no distinctive voice. It was difficult at times to differentiate between Jamison and Andrew. I did get used to it, but I never liked it. (Let's talk about the epilogue and how no name is ever used and we don't really know whose head we are in. I'd guess Jamie, but there's about a 45% chance I'd be wrong, I think.)

I definitely feel like Andrew and Jamison have trouble telling each other things that could potentially save their lives, because they have a bad habit of not telling each other when there's danger about. (Jamison more so than Andrew, but Andrew does have that ‘big' secret that he sits on just to add drama.)

I do like the fact that Jamison has a bit of a sexual awakening. I could have done with more attention to that, but that's not what the story was about so I liked it.

The book did give me anxiety at times - though, quite tellingly, not because of the superbug, but because of the horrible people that still exist.

All in all, not a terrible read, an author I could read more by, but a book that - possibly because of my shifting mood while reading it - didn't completely work for me.