Zone One by Colson Whitehead (5 Points)
I know it's really hard for people to consider extremely grim and grotesque futures like zombies and even plagues, (which really hits too close to home these days) but I also think they bring up the fascinating scenario of pushing humanity to its breaking point. I personally adore the concept of the apocalypse not for the suffering or for the trauma, but the exercise of worst-case scenarios and how our society would cope. I'd never want the world to experience such tragedy, but I believe the disassembly of the modern world is a great exercise for writers to figure out how to put it back together again.
I think Whitehead does a really graphic and human reinterpretation of how individuals fall apart and have to continue one without trying to make it feel like a Hollywood film with heroics and saving the world. Our main character, dubbed Mark Spitz for reasons later discovered in the novel, very well knows the world is fucked, and has a very realistic outlook on how the world may or may not be able to put itself back together, but he strives to march in in spite of it without too much optimism but not overwhelming skepticism. Spitz is a unique and incredibly human character in the sense that his thoughts and morals feel tangible. In many situations, I would have either acted or had the same thoughts he also experienced in both the present time and flashback portions of the novel. It was a privilege to be able to walk through a character's mind and have it so strongly reflect a common way of thinking, and it made the story all that more immersive. I suppose that this tangibility might also make it very hard for the reader not to become sucked into the hellish life that is now Spitz's day today, but I found it very enjoyable and believe it made the story and characters all the more authentic.
It harkened back to the World War Z novel (My friends would beg you to not mention the film to me as I will trash it any day of the week) where we get a broad look at how the world began to adapt to chaos. But I really enjoyed that instead of the autobiography slices that are compiled into what is World War Z, Zone One predominately presents characters with the same depth but keeps them recurrent throughout the whole novel. I also just want to gush about Whitehead's writing style that feels graphic and impacts you without feeling laborious to process. I think my only complaint but also the most intriguing aspect of the novel was the non-linear aspects that it contains where we are constantly riding in and out of the past and present as if we were direct passengers in Mark's Spitz train of thought. While it was wildly disorienting, I also found it endearing and well as realistic in terms of how thoughts actually feel.
Overall, would highly recommend the novel to any apocalypse fan as well as someone who'd loved unique writing styles.
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