Wednesday, October 22, 2014

2014 book 249

Emily Schultz's The Blondes
This came to my attention because Margaret Atwood was into it, though it turns out Schultz is the author known for having a book with the same name as a Stephen King book and creating a Tumblr about it. So I was predisposed to like her even before I realized this was a literary post-apocalyptic novel, one of my favorite genres! In this one, a plague develops that only affects blonde women--and turns them crazy/rabid and violent and destructive. (It even affects those with dyed blonde hair, making me momentarily wonder if I should go back to my natural brown.) The whole story is being narrated by one young woman to her unborn child, as she's holed up in her married boyfriend's wife's cabin. I will say that I was not super interested in the whole I'm-a-grad-student-sleeping-with-my-married-adviser thing--it's been done a million times--but things get really interesting when she's talking about anything else. Great concept for a pandemic, too. I did wish the protagonist had been a better friend, and I had mixed feelings about the end, but a fun read for sure. B+.

No comments: