The Survivalists
Ratings3
Average rating4.3
15
Ratings3
Average rating4.3
A Phenomenal Book Club Pick “A great and engrossing read, Kashana humanizes a way of life that is often made fun of and makes the reader understand why someone would go to such great lengths to prepare for the future, so much so she almost sold me on those Life Preserver soy bars!” —Trevor Noah A single Black lawyer puts her career and personal moral code at risk when she moves in with her coffee entrepreneur boyfriend and his doomsday-prepping roommates in a novel that's packed with tension, curiosity, humor, and wit from a writer with serious comedy credentials In the wake of her parents’ death, Aretha, a habitually single Black lawyer, has had only one obsession in life—success—until she falls for Aaron, a coffee entrepreneur. Moving into his Brooklyn brownstone to live along with his Hurricane Sandy-traumatized, illegal-gun-stockpiling, optimized-soy-protein-eating, bunker-building roommates, Aretha finds that her dreams of making partner are slipping away, replaced by an underground world, one of selling guns and training for a doomsday that’s maybe just around the corner. For readers of Victor LaValle’s The Changeling, Paul Beatty’s The Sellout, and Zakiya Harris’s The Other Black Girl, The Survivalists is a darkly humorous novel from a smart and relevant new literary voice that's packed with tension, curiosity and wit, and unafraid to ask the questions most relevant to a new generation of Americans: Does it make sense to climb the corporate ladder? What exactly are the politics of gun ownership? And in a world where it’s nearly impossible for young people to earn enough money to afford stable housing, what does it take in order to survive?
Reviews with the most likes.
Superb!
Loved everything about this book. The characters were awesome, the plot believable and contemporary and the ending stunning. Great read
I won't summarize what anyone can read in a book preview. This book was really fun to read and would make a GREAT movie!
Kashana Cauley's The Survivalists is a novel about a group of friends who turn to a life of crime to survive in the aftermath of a major economic collapse. The novel follows the friends as they rob banks and stores, and eventually turn to murder to sustain themselves. The novel is a dark and violent depiction of the potential for human greed and brutality when society breaks down.
Cauley's debut novel is a page-turner that is both plausible and terrifying. The characters are fully-developed and the plot is tightly paced. The Survivalists is a gripping portrait of a group of people pushed to the brink of desperation, and the lengths they will go to in order to survive.
What a weird book. I enjoyed it, but how to actually classify it? I picked it for my book club because they requested “something lighter, maybe something dystopian.” They're probably never going to let me pick anything again!
Because while I thought it was supposed to be a thriller, The Survivalists didn't match the quick pacing that I've come to associate with thrillers. There was a lot more about main character Aretha, her character motivations, a bit of character building associated with the other characters as well, but a lot of the action up until the very end was more internal than external.
And I didn't know where it was supposed to be headed! Which was kind of nice that I didn't figure it out, though there were zero hints dropped in advance. Most of the time we were in Aretha's head, but occasionally we would randomly jump into one of her roommates' heads.
Sometimes the format confused me as to whether Aretha as literally traveling around the city or just fantasizing about doing so. Her job and most of her existence sounded hellish. As always, you should watch the Crazy Ex-Girlfriend “Don't Be a Lawyer” song.
Anyway, I hope some book club people read it so I can talk about it.
