{read: end of the world} The Dog Stars by Peter Heller

I'm usually not one for post-apocalyptic novels, so I previewed the beginning of The Dog Stars first before putting it on my TBR. The language on the first page drew me in, and I was hooked.

This story of Hig (Big Hig, if you want two names), his dog (Jasper), and his neighbor (Bangley). Hig and Bangley survived the flu that killed Hig's wife and most of the rest of the country, and they live at a small, deserted airport. Hig owns a Cessna and he and his dog, Jasper, make reconnaissance runs. During one of these runs, he hears a radio transmission and wonders if there is someone else out there. The trouble is that if this transmission is real, the person is outside the point of no return, or the distance that Hig can travel and have enough fuel to return. Yet one day he decides to take the chance, knowing he may never come back.

The language is beautiful, the story is compelling, and Hig is a character that you'll root for from the first page. This is one of my favorite books of 2012.

The Dog Stars by Peter Heller (Knopf, 2012)
My rating: 5 stars

{read: Envisioning the Rapture} The Leftovers by Tom Perrotta

This book has an interesting premise but failed to deliver on it. After a Rapture-like event in which a large number of seemingly randomly selected people disappear, families and friends are left to carry on. Many of those left behind are shocked that they weren't selected as paragons of goodness and light, and one man, a priest, goes so far as to dig up the dirt on all those who were taken and publish it. A group called the Guilty Remnant starts up, filled with people who wear white, don't talk, and smoke cigarettes. They follow people around and stare at them so that they don't forget about the Rapture-like event. While these things were funny and interesting in the beginning of the book, they wore thin as the book went on. I had a hard time getting involved in the stories of Nora, a woman who lost her husband and two small children, and Kevin, whose family didn't lose any people but suffered collateral damage when his wife went to join the G.R., his son went to join another group led by a fanatic, and his daughter shaved her head. To me, this was just another book about the quiet desperation of suburbia. I almost didn't finish it, but I was hoping for a great ending to make it all worthwhile. While the ending wasn't quite what I expected (in a good way), it wasn't enough payoff for the rest of the book.

The Leftovers by Tom Perrotta (St. Martin's Press, 2011)
My rating: 2 stars