A Children's Bible by Lydia Millet - Book Review

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A Children's Bible 

By Lydia Millet 

A National Book Award finalist 2020 

Genre: Sci-fi, Dystopian Future, Thriller,2021-read, Dark, children-fiction

        


Rating 3/5

A very average read. This story is a peek into a plausible and possibly realistic future for humanity where global warming and other factors lead to a complete collapse of environmental balance/functioning. It signals an end to the human race/existing species while hoping for the rise of newer populations that could survive the conditions. 

A bunch of kids and their parents move to a summer resort for the vacation. The strained quality of relationship between parents and children is evident in the narrator's outright contempt and hatred  towards the parents - they blame the parents for not doing their "part"/"duty" which resulted in the current state of their world - meaning I believe chaos, climate change etc. The parents on their turn are shown to be self indulgent, hedonistic and absolutely indifferent to their children - I thought these are not real people the author is showing us but ghosts/zombies because their behavior is very weird/outlandish. A storm destroys the castle they are in and the children escape leaving their parents behind. They take shelter in a barn which soon has some visitors - wielding guns and looking for pillaging/plundering food. The children reunite with their parents, escape the imprisonment and run away to a safe, rich home - only to find life thrown off course from what's usual and coming to terms with an end to all species of their kind.. at some point in future. 

Every time I thought the situation is going to get horrid/darker, I ended up being disappointed. The kids were never in any bigger threat than what the climate change posed - this is clear. I didn't understand some characters and their significance . Why is death of sukey's mother important? Who is the owner with the power to heal a broken leg? Why are the parents so weird in their behavior?? 

Overall it's flaky and patchy with loose ends left untied all over the place. I guess she could have conveyed what she did in a different/better way. 😕 🙁 

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