California

Cal and Frida is living in the middle of the 21st century, however it wasn’t the future we expected. Cities have crumbled, the internet has died and technology is worthless. Leaving city life behind, they now have to live in the wilderness, struggling to survive. Isolation and hardship are all new experiences; they live in fear of an uncertain future. A future that now consists of giving birth and raising a child in this post-apocalyptic world.

The post-apocalyptic back drop has been hugely popular lately and it isn’t just young adult fiction. Many literary fiction authors have tried their hand at the genre, giving them a unique world to explore real life issues. I’m thinking of great books like The Road by Cormac McCarthy, Super Sad True Love Story by Gary Shteyngart, The Passage by Justin Cronin and the Maddaddam series by Margaret Atwood. Edan Lepucki’s California sets out to join the ranks of the great with this overly ambitious first novel.

I will be honest, the only reason I picked up California was because of the promotion that appeared on The Colbert Report a while ago. The novel had enough to peak my interest but I had great difficulty getting a copy where I lived. Ironically I finally settled on getting the book through Audible to listen to. The premise of the novel was great; the idea of a world returning to the dark ages offered some interesting ideas. While we are never sure, the novel does allude to global warming as the underlining cause of this post-apocalyptic world.

I expected this novel to be the slow burn that The Road provided, building the characters and struggle while exploring the intended themes. However, I think this book burned a little too slowly, the flame went out halfway through and it turned into more of a chore to get through. Sure, the notions of communities, eco-terrorism and climate change were explored but for me it felt like I was being beaten over my head every chance they got. The book wanted to show off how smart and witty it was but, like many things that try to do this, the delivery never matched the intent.

California moved so slowly that as a reader, I was trapped in the wilderness of nothingness and I didn’t think I could escape. This was a real pity, everything seemed to start off so well; there was a plot arc and themes all set up and ready for execution. Somewhere on the way I feel like the author got a little lost and the readers were just following to her struggle to get back on track. I might come down hard on this novel; it isn’t too bad, there is a lot of potential and could have been a great book. For me it just didn’t work and wasn’t paced properly, I’m sure some people enjoyed it.

This review originally appeared on my blog: literary-exploration.com/2014/10/11/california-by-edan-lepucki/

This is not a badly written book. The form is good, and it stands up. It breathes quite well.

Two main characters, a heterosexual couple, exist in a post-apocalyptic America that quickly turns into a kind of [b:Lord of the Flies|7624|Lord of the Flies|William Golding|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1327869409s/7624.jpg|2766512]-cum-[b:Oryx and Crake|46756|Oryx and Crake (MaddAddam Trilogy, #1)|Margaret Atwood|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1327896599s/46756.jpg|3143431] universe, propelled by a brother, whose terrorism is a little interesting.

Sadly, I felt the book continually tried to impress, rather than move and join, the reader. Getting to where they are, socioeconomically, is never really explained, more contrived:

At the time, Frida imagined herself describing the moment. Maybe to an old friend or to her mother. Or online, as she used to do until their last year in L.A., before electricity became too expensive, before the Internet became a privilege for the very few. She had once kept a diligent online record of her life; she’d had a blog since she’d been able to write. Her brain couldn’t just let that habit go, and in her head she said, There I was, naked, my hair falling over my shoulders. But he didn’t care! He had become immune to my nakedness. The phrase was so silly, so melodramatic. Immune to my nakedness. But it was true. Cal wasn’t looking. And all at once she understood: no one was looking.

She kept her eyes on the shovel. “How deep do you need to go?” He shrugged. “Deep enough.” She rolled her eyes. She hated when he offered vague, poetic answers to her questions. “Sorry.” “I didn’t get my period,” she said. Why had she just blurted it out like that? He looked at her carefully for a moment, as if willing himself to recognize her. “How late?” “Too late. Thirteen days. You know I’m always on time.”

Like his wife, Bo wore a gold band on his left ring finger. So they’d been out here awhile, Frida thought, long before the world really went to shit. Hilda and Dada had given Frida their rings as a wedding present, but she and Cal had sold them not long after.

This is not a badly written book. The form is good, and it stands up. It breathes quite well.

Two main characters, a heterosexual couple, exist in a post-apocalyptic America that quickly turns into a kind of b:Lord of the Flies|7624|Lord of the Flies|William Golding|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1327869409s/7624.jpg|2766512-cum-b:Oryx and Crake|46756|Oryx and Crake (MaddAddam Trilogy, #1)|Margaret Atwood|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1327896599s/46756.jpg|3143431 universe, propelled by a brother, whose terrorism is a little interesting.

Sadly, I felt the book continually tried to impress, rather than move and join, the reader. Getting to where they are, socioeconomically, is never really explained, more contrived:

At the time, Frida imagined herself describing the moment. Maybe to an old friend or to her mother. Or online, as she used to do until their last year in L.A., before electricity became too expensive, before the Internet became a privilege for the very few. She had once kept a diligent online record of her life; she’d had a blog since she’d been able to write. Her brain couldn’t just let that habit go, and in her head she said, There I was, naked, my hair falling over my shoulders. But he didn’t care! He had become immune to my nakedness. The phrase was so silly, so melodramatic. Immune to my nakedness. But it was true. Cal wasn’t looking. And all at once she understood: no one was looking.

She kept her eyes on the shovel. “How deep do you need to go?” He shrugged. “Deep enough.” She rolled her eyes. She hated when he offered vague, poetic answers to her questions. “Sorry.” “I didn’t get my period,” she said. Why had she just blurted it out like that? He looked at her carefully for a moment, as if willing himself to recognize her. “How late?” “Too late. Thirteen days. You know I’m always on time.”

Like his wife, Bo wore a gold band on his left ring finger. So they’d been out here awhile, Frida thought, long before the world really went to shit. Hilda and Dada had given Frida their rings as a wedding present, but she and Cal had sold them not long after.

This is not a badly written book. The form is good, and it stands up. It breathes quite well.

Two main characters, a heterosexual couple, exist in a post-apocalyptic America that quickly turns into a kind of [b:Lord of the Flies|7624|Lord of the Flies|William Golding|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1327869409s/7624.jpg|2766512]-cum-[b:Oryx and Crake|46756|Oryx and Crake (MaddAddam Trilogy, #1)|Margaret Atwood|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1327896599s/46756.jpg|3143431] universe, propelled by a brother, whose terrorism is a little interesting.

Sadly, I felt the book continually tried to impress, rather than move and join, the reader. Getting to where they are, socioeconomically, is never really explained, more contrived:

At the time, Frida imagined herself describing the moment. Maybe to an old friend or to her mother. Or online, as she used to do until their last year in L.A., before electricity became too expensive, before the Internet became a privilege for the very few. She had once kept a diligent online record of her life; she’d had a blog since she’d been able to write. Her brain couldn’t just let that habit go, and in her head she said, There I was, naked, my hair falling over my shoulders. But he didn’t care! He had become immune to my nakedness. The phrase was so silly, so melodramatic. Immune to my nakedness. But it was true. Cal wasn’t looking. And all at once she understood: no one was looking.

She kept her eyes on the shovel. “How deep do you need to go?” He shrugged. “Deep enough.” She rolled her eyes. She hated when he offered vague, poetic answers to her questions. “Sorry.” “I didn’t get my period,” she said. Why had she just blurted it out like that? He looked at her carefully for a moment, as if willing himself to recognize her. “How late?” “Too late. Thirteen days. You know I’m always on time.”

Like his wife, Bo wore a gold band on his left ring finger. So they’d been out here awhile, Frida thought, long before the world really went to shit. Hilda and Dada had given Frida their rings as a wedding present, but she and Cal had sold them not long after.