The Brief History of the Dead by Kevin Brockmeier.
I wanted to love this book because my youngest sister claims it’s one of her all-time favorites. I like the idea of the book, a place where we go when we die, a limbo type destination where we get to hang out with all of our dead friends and family. It’s a city that doesn’t appear to end, filled with people from all walks of life. Cool, I can get on board with that. The main premise is an epidemic hits the world, causing a virus to spread so quickly it kills off almost the entire population within weeks. All but one, a woman who is on an expedition to the South Pole, and is left to fend for herself. She’s out of touch with what’s happening in the rest of the world and soon everyone but her is wiped out.
Again, I like the idea of the story; however, I found it to be prolonged and almost begging for it to end. It is written well in the story molds together well, building up questions and then answering them one at a time. The pace is what got me. Too many characters who didn’t matter to me and often I found myself trying to figure out who the story was really about.
I’d give this a two-star, but I did finish, and I did enjoy the ending. If the pace were half as quick as the virus was at killing people off the story would have been more interesting to me.
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Two more pictures of the book I couldn’t decide what I liked best. The red is eye-catching but the dead flowers kind of speak to the theme of the book.
Melisa Peterson Lewis 