On the Edge of Gone

For a while I've been stuck between either 2 or 3 stars, but eventually decided on the former. Characters can either make or break a certain book for me, but in this case I'd say they broke it.

The story is about an apocalypse, happening in 2035. It takes place before, during and after, and it's about a teenage girl and her family (her mom and sister) trying to survive by getting on a generation ship which will leave Earth in order to start anew.

That is basically the gist of the entire story. Denise, our protagonist, finds ways to get the generation ship's captain to allow her on board, and then also tries to find ways to get her family on board. There's not a whole lot of interesting story there, so you have to really care about the characters in order to make it gripping. But unfortunately it wasn't really.

The perspectives, and the characters themselves, are interesting in theory. Denise is autistic, and this being in first-person, we really get a good look inside her thoughts. The problem though was that she just came across as very whiny and self-absorbed, and I had a really hard time trying to root for her when it seemed like everyone else in that world was weirdly civil about things. Unlikable traits can work in characters, but I didn't find her character very compelling and it all ultimately felt flat and incredibly frustrating and I didn't care if she won this particular battle or not, especially when there were other people that were much more deserving of it. (And don't even get me started on the mom, ugh).

As for good notes, I thought the narration was excellent (at times maybe even TOO good, because the “panic-y” voice just annoyed me after a few times), and I love that the story is set in The Netherlands (with mentions to Belgium) and that there's a few Dutch names and place names. The idea is pretty cool too, and I could imagine the world like how it's described. I just wish it was from a different perspective than the one we got.