レビュー要約

• 荒廃したアメリカの風景と家族を求める感情の線が印象に残る一方、語りの散漫さを指摘する声もある。詩的な終末像を重視する読者に向く。

レビュー

• Lost Everything has everything

  Slattery is a good writer and has a focus on the history of the characters giving them depth and providing a degree of realism to a sci-fi post-apocalyptic novel. The plot is compelling and the two protagonists are so real that if you dream about the book these two will be able to talk to you in dreams. Not many authors can accomplish this degree of realism in the construction of characters for a science-fiction historical style novel.

• Brilliant

  Reads like a hot, humid, lazy day, albeit during a civil war, post-apocalypse.

• ultra-dark apocalyptic future thriller

  Sailing up the Susquehanna River towards Harrisburg, filled with remorse for his actions and regret for not being there for his son Aaron, Sunny Jim searches for his offspring with little hope of finding him. He thinks about his sister Merry siting by a window in the family home with a gun wondering if she is alive and he wonders about Aline. Everywhere he and his companion Reverend Bauxite, whom he met in devastated Baltimore, look, they see destruction like the collapse of the Market Street Bridge and corpses. The violent storms brought America to its knees with pandemic destruction. Those with power cling to it at any cost while those without join a side or die immediately as civil war is heading everywhere. No one including Sunny Jim escapes the militia. They are following him up the Susquehanna ravaging the land and killing or scripting anyone in their way. Sunny Jim and Reverend Bauxite steal supplies from the army. Whereas the two weary travelers continue their watery road trip, they see death wherever they go; the army brings death wherever they go. If they catch him and the Reverend they will kill them. This ultra-dark apocalyptic future thriller is fast-paced with an America no longer on the Eve of Destruction (P. F. Sloan). There are three prime settings (The River, The Highway and The House) that rotate perspective but share in common the death of the Unites States. Although the names of characters seem too whimsical with all the doom and gloom and musical lyrics distracting, fans will appreciate this grim saga mindful of Cormac McCarthy's The Road. Harriet Klausner

• Mesmerizing, haunting, magical...

  As soon as I finished "Lost Everything" I went back to page one and started reading it again. That's how good it is. Slattery's writing just transports me. And the world he describes is so real, the characters so authentic .... And the writing -- brilliant! Every page filled with gorgeous prose. One of my top ten favorite books ever.

• Confused and boring

  I debated for a while as to whether I should post a review of this book. Normally, I abide by the Thumperian Principle: If you don't have anything nice to say, don't say nothin' at all. Then I thought about all the other readers out there who could end up spending ten hard-earned dollars for this piece of crap, and I decided that I had to post a warning to all. "Lost Everything" seems like a Family Guy joke book. You know when Brian, the pretentious dog, says he's going to write a novel or something and gets all up on his high horse? Yeah, this could be that book. Hey, it's even written by a guy named Brian. First of all, it's titled "Lost Everything," and it's every bit as depressing as it seems. Pointlessly depressing, I might add. Slattery spends pages and pages describing how sad everyone is now that they've lost everything. Boo hoo, look at all the remnants of society. And there's basically no plot. The Kindle book has no chapter breaks, which makes it hard to navigate. Now, if that were the only thing hard to navigate about this book, I wouldn't care. But this novel is downright impenetrable. Don't be fooled by the seemingly interesting description, as I was. The whole "finding his lost son" business is just an excuse to have a description that might actually attract readers. The majority of the novel is a confused mash-up of random tales that take place in a post-apocalyptic US. Slattery never tells us what happened to destroy the nation or what the dreaded "Big One" that looms on the horizon is. The "Big One" also never hits. Literally nothing of interest happens in this book... we follow dry character after dry character, who are written so sketchily that it's impossible to give a crap about any of them. Also, who the hell is narrating? The book jumps points of view, making it seem omniscient, but then randomly turns to the audience and starts speaking in first person. It's as though Slattery is narrating from the beyond, an almighty force playing God, which could work if he'd bother italicizing peoples' thoughts or putting quotation marks around their dialogue. Basically, the one star I'm giving this book is for the descriptions. Slattery writes well; I'll give him that. The descriptions of scenery are beautiful. But that's all the book is: descriptions of scenery. The characters are wallpaper, and the concept - oh no, we've gone and destroyed the Earth and now we're all sad - is not original. So please, unless you're a fan of confusing, pretentious, inscrutable wannabe lit fic, do not waste your money on this book. Go spend it on some nice $2.99 novels that actually have a point.

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