Review by Booklist Review
Riley has her life figured out--or as much of a life as she can have in a world where society has been ravaged by a pandemic. The pandemic in question isn't a virus or bacteria; instead, it sends anyone who makes eye contact with another human into a rage that ends in violent death. To survive, Riley has holed herself away in her late grandmother's cabin with enough food and water to last for several months of total isolation. When a mysterious stranger moves in down the road, Riley's conditioned acceptance of the world is shattered. Ellis makes her feel safe, and, despite her best efforts, Riley finds herself making increasingly reckless decisions in her search for human contact. But when she starts to feel eyes constantly tracking her and to experience increasingly frequent losses of time, Riley begins to question just how alone she is. A refreshingly original take on dystopian fiction, Moraine's latest is as haunting as it is thought-provoking. Fans of Blindness (1998), by José Saramago, and Station Eleven (2014), by Emily St. John Mandel, will be gripped by Riley's deeply human struggles amid a global pandemic.
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Moraine (Casting the Bones) sets this sharp, tension-filled psychological thriller in a world stricken by a strange and violent pandemic that is transmitted through eye contact and triggers the urge to kill both others and, eventually, oneself. Riley has been isolated in a house in the woods by a lake for so long that time has become fluid and her connection to reality is fading. At the start of the book, she encounters the first human she's seen in who-knows-how-long: Ellis, who seems kind and well-intentioned, but may be hiding something sinister. The rules of the eye-contact-killing disease are at times hard to grasp, with the characters just as unclear on its mechanics as the reader (the failure of technology has caused a near-total disconnection between Riley, Ellis, and whatever's left of the world, leaving them unaware of any discoveries or mutations that may have occurred). As the bite-size novel progresses, it becomes clear that Riley, too, cannot be trusted: her version of events hides the macabre truth of her past. The result is a freaky and masterfully constructed tale, whose strength most often comes from what Moraine leaves to the imagination. Read this one with the lights on. (Feb.)
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Library Journal Review
Moraine's (Sword and Star) latest takes listeners on an emotional journey through human interactions in a postapocalyptic landscape. In this pandemic-ravaged world, simply looking into someone else's eyes triggers and ignites murderous rage and violence. Riley has been alone for a long time until she meets Ellis. She wants to get closer to him but is also cautious and distrustful, unable to trust her judgment as unexplained phenomena pile up. Moraine, a writer for podcasts including The Shadow Files of Morgan Knox, keeps a tight focus on Riley as she tries to discover how to engage with people when eye contact leads to certain disaster. However, that tight focus, combined with Riley's questionable reliability as a narrator, occasionally wears thin. Additionally, Riley's incomplete explanation of how the plague spreads might frustrate some listeners. Moraine's audiobook narration, with her pulling double duty as author and voice actor, does give Riley's character some emotional pathos despite her slippery nature. VERDICT Postapocalyptic stories like this and Josh Malerman's Bird Box often focus on what changes when society stops working. In this uneasy tale, Moraine suggests that what changes is how humans interact with one another.--James Gardner
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
