GENERAL INFORMATION
TITLE: POSTAPOC
AUTHOR: LIZ WORTH
PAGES: 193
PUBLISHER: NOW OR NEVER PUBLISHING
YEAR: 2013
A free copy of PostApoc was provided by the author in exchange for a review.
BLURB FROM THE COVER
Sole survivor of a suicide pact, Ang has fallen into an underground music scene obsessed with the idea of the end of the world. But when the end finally does come, Ang and her friends don’t find the liberation they expected. Instead, those still alive are starving, strung out and struggling to survive in a world that no longer makes sense. As Ang navigates the world’s final days, her emotional and physical instability mix with growing uncertainty and she begins to distrust her perception in a place where nothing can ever be trusted for what it seems to be. Bleak and haunting, PostApoc blends poetry and punk rock, surrealism and stark imagery to tell the story of a girl wavering at the edge of her sanity.
EXTRACT
Outside, the dogs have all gone wild. Can you hear them? Can you feel them down there, voices shaking through loose skin?
REVIEW
I loved PostApoc. I enjoy post-apocalyptic fiction. Worth offers something very startling and original with PostApoc. I want to read more of her work. I must admit I didn’t like the title at first but PostApoc grew on me.
STRUCTURE: I like the fact PostApoc is split into numbered chapters that also have a heading. I like it when author’s give chapters a heading. Don’t ask me why. It’s a thing I like when it’s done well. In PostApoc, the headings serve as a sort of summary of what the chapter is going to be about (i.e. 1: Open up and Start, 2: Sisterhood) etc. Worth effortlessly blends the past and present as Ang and her straggling band of fellow survivors struggle to make sense of a senseless world. I liked the little glimpses Worth offers into Ang’s life before The End including her relationship with Hunter, her friendship with Aimee (my favorite spelling of this name) and the suicide pact Ang, Hunter and her friends made. Ang didn’t have the bottle to go through with her suicide and wonders if her survival caused The End.
PLACE: The world Worth creates in PostApoc is real and very unsettling. I thought her vision of a post-apocalyptic world was spot on. I believed in it. Worth doesn’t reveal what has caused the events Ang refers to as The End. There is no big explosion or science gone wrong that I’ve found in other post-apocalyptic fiction. I liked the fact Worth doesn’t offer a big explanation for what’s going on. PostApoc is a brilliant example of this type of fiction because Worth leaves it so open. Readers are allowed to make up their own mind about what’s going on and Worth doesn’t give you a lot of clues. Worth’s writing is so vivid you don’t need any. The world has gone to hell and Ang her friends are clinging, not very well to what’s left of the world. One failing of other post-apocalyptic fiction is that the survivors try to recreate the society that has fallen apart. Worth doesn’t attempt to this. There’s no sense of hope or the possibility of any semblance of the old world turning. I thought this was a bold move by Worth and it works. I found the world Worth creates in PostApoc more vivid and real than in similar types of fiction.
CHARACTERISATION: Worth uses Ang as a first person narrator in PostApoc. There are other characters, namely the various people Ang’s life collides with as she tries to survive in this dark new world. The other characters are flesh and blood and believable but Ang steals the show. I am a fan of first person narrators. If an author pulls it off it can be a powerful tool. It can also fail miserably. PostApoc has one of the best first person narrators I’ve ever read. I loved Ang. I loved her voice. I found her hypnotic and addictive. PostApoc works because of Ang’s voice. PostApoc would not have been half as good if Worth had used a more distant third person narrator.
PLOT: PostApoc is one of the best examples of post-apocalyptic fiction I’ve ever read. It’s right up there with Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood in terms of greatness. I’m a fan of this type of fiction because of the possibilities it offers for something truly original. Worth pulls it off. At times I wondered if The End was really happening or was PostApoc simply a long and very detailed hallucination of Ang’s brought on by taking too many drugs. I liked the fact Ang thought she caused The End because she didn’t die the day her boyfriend and friends did. Maybe Ang was right? There were a lot of brilliant moments in PostApoc. Aimee goes off on her own to try to score some drugs and is gang raped. She dies later miscarrying a child that was a product of her assault. I found this part of PostApoc heart-breaking. Another friend of Ang’s, Claire dies in a very painful way. Death is everywhere. Ang meets two women living in a hut on the beach who become prophet-like to her. PostApoc is filled with moments that make you pause and think wow! this shit is great.
RATING
