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Epitaph Road
2097 is a transformed world. Thirty years earlier, a mysterious plague wiped out 97 percent of the male population, devastating every world system from governments to sports teams, and causing both universal and unimaginable grief. In the face of such massive despair, women were forced to take over control of the planet—and in doing so they eliminated all of Earth's most pressing issues. Poverty, crime, warfare, hunger . . . all gone.
But there's a price to pay for this new "utopia," which fourteen-year-old Kellen is all too familiar with. Every day, he deals with life as part of a tiny minority that is purposefully kept subservient and small in numbers. His career choices and relationship options are severely limited and controlled. He also lives under the threat of scattered recurrences of the plague, which seem to pop up wherever small pockets of men begin to regroup and grow in numbers.
And then one day, his mother's boss, an iconic political figure, shows up at his home. Kellen overhears something he shouldn't—another outbreak seems to be headed for Afterlight, the rural community where his father and a small group of men live separately from the female-dominated society. Along with a few other suspicious events, like the mysterious disappearances of Kellen's progressive teacher and his Aunt Paige, Kellen is starting to wonder whether the plague recurrences are even accidental. No matter what the truth is, Kellen cares only about one thing—he has to save his father.
But there's a price to pay for this new "utopia," which fourteen-year-old Kellen is all too familiar with. Every day, he deals with life as part of a tiny minority that is purposefully kept subservient and small in numbers. His career choices and relationship options are severely limited and controlled. He also lives under the threat of scattered recurrences of the plague, which seem to pop up wherever small pockets of men begin to regroup and grow in numbers.
And then one day, his mother's boss, an iconic political figure, shows up at his home. Kellen overhears something he shouldn't—another outbreak seems to be headed for Afterlight, the rural community where his father and a small group of men live separately from the female-dominated society. Along with a few other suspicious events, like the mysterious disappearances of Kellen's progressive teacher and his Aunt Paige, Kellen is starting to wonder whether the plague recurrences are even accidental. No matter what the truth is, Kellen cares only about one thing—he has to save his father.
266 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2010
46 people are currently reading
2984 people want to read
About the author
David Patneaude
18 books84 followersDavid Patneaude began writing seriously (more or less) in the 1980s. His first novel, SOMEONE WAS WATCHING, was published in 1993. His books have been named to dozens of state young readers' lists and honored by the New York Public Library, the Society of School Librarians International, the Winnetka (Illinois) Public Library's "One Book, Two Villages" program, and the Washington State Public Library. His latest was EPITAPH ROAD, a recent nominee for the Nebraska Golden Sower Book Award. But on June 1, 2018, his newest YA novel, FAST BACKWARD, launches. Check it out! When he's not in a coffee shop writing, or at a school or library or conference discussing writing, or out on the trail thinking about writing, he's home in Woodinville, Washington, with his wife Judy, a middle school librarian.
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November 30, 2010
Yeah, so I'm going to spoil the hell out of this book; but for good reason, and you should read the spoilers even if you haven't read the book because it might save you a few hours.
This was supposed to be my counterpoint to The Handmaid's Tale for a big project on gender in dystopian science fiction. Unfortunately it is only today, four days after turning in said project, that I found via a review of this book the one I should have read instead: The Gate To Women's Country by Sherri S. Tepper. (I'll definitely track it down and read it later.)
Anyhow, here's the thing. Ya got your dystopias divided by gender. I'm totally cool with that. Atwood writes about a world in which females are completely repressed- fine and dandy.
HOWEVER.
When it comes to female-dominated societies.
Men. Cannot. Write. Them.
(With the possible exception of Orson Scott Card, though it's been a long time since I've read the first books of the Homecoming series.)
So maybe it's Patneaude who can't write them... but anyhow, here's why.
Women can write about male-dominated societies because, news flash, we live in one. No, no, don't argue with me on this because you will not win. (To be clear, I will discuss the U.S. only in the following; other countries have been more progressive but I'm most familliar with the U.S.) We have had no female presidents, no female vice presidents, and one female Speaker of the House. Our Congress is mostly male (in 2009 the Senate had a record 17 female members in the full hundred, and the House 74 out of three hundred plus), and while our Judiciary is making strides it's still not at the 5:4 male:female ration I would consider 'equal enough'. (Close, though! Maybe it will happen in my lifetime.) Women are, in their lifespan, paid less on the dollar than men for equal work. They are less likely to be CEOs or otherwise prominently placed in business. In many religions they are outright forbidden from being pastors/ministers/what have you.
In short, women are less involved in the critical decision-making at the top of most power structures.
Most of these decisions have historically been and continue to be made by men.
Thus, we live in a male-dominated society; a world run by a male mindset and characterized in meetings of power by interactions between men. It's relatively simple, then, to take the world we're familliar with and exaggerate it into a dystopia, or draw existing ideas to their logical (or sometimes, illogical) conclusions.
Patneaude is writing about a world which he has no way to predict. So he takes the easy way out. Basically, he substitutes feminine pronouns where necessary, mentions that nations now stretch over whole continents and that war has been eradicated, and calls it good.
And I, feminist, woman, read it and call it bull.
It's been thirty years since the event that killed off all the men but damn, everything looks much the same! Granted we hardly explore this world at all (for shame, Patneaude, for shame; there's so much potential) but what we see of it looks familliar- more eco-friendly, perhaps, but this is Seattle. I'd expect that with time alone. We still have rush hour traffic, police, secretive government meetings, mandatory education. The changes- abandoned houses, lack of crime, poverty, hunger, etc; accessibility of education- seem to be due more to the population decline than anything else.
And then there are the things that don't sound like something a female-controlled society would do at all. For instance, the Trials- the tests you take at age 14 that permit you to be a full member of society... and that if you fail, you cannot retake for three years. Seem a little off for this supposed utopia? Yeah. If they served a narrative purpose they might just get by, but they don't, really- just something for Kellan to forget about so we see how consuming his adventure was.
The fixation on boys, that's another thing. For heaven's sake, I'm not expecting this to be the Planet of the Lesbians, but there should be at least a few girls who get their sexual experimentation thing on with other girls- IE, not all of them should see Kellan as some kind of trophy. A curiosity, sure, but we know he's not that rare- there's even another guy in his class- so it doesn't warrant his treatment.
Here are a few things that I would have expected in a society that became female-dominated so quickly:
- Political turmoil as women formerly far underneath the top jobs had to pick up the reins (which I'll admit, Patneaude hinted at).
- Scientific turmoil as women, who do not comprise a majority of researchers, found themselves trying to interpret now-dead colleagues' working notes. (IE, unless the electric cars were around before the disaster, I don't expect to see them so well developed and widespread.)
- Difficulty in dispersion of news of the new era, and difficulty in solidifying those megacountries. You've just lost most of your airplane pilots, remember.
- Collapse of international infrastructure and economic confusion, if not outright panic- because there go all those CEOs and a lot of the traders- and the ones that are left now have quite a few dead investors.
- An immediate shift in focus to the most practical aspects of life: namely, farming, which means most people should have left the city and started farming.
Those are just a few changes that should have been accounted for and weren't. Some of them could have been negated had Patneaude mentioned a greater equality between men and women in the time before the disaster, but in fact it seemed from the snippets of the past we are shown that the opposite was true. (There is a possibility that said snippets are incorrect and were planted by the female gov't to make themselves look good; but as this book takes place only thirty years after the disaster it's unlikely they could get away with it.)
So there's that. But what about the plot?
Simplistic. Of course, the 'big secret' is that the disease was engineered by women. Was this a surprise to anyone, really? It was extremely virulent, spread through the most available medium around (air), and targeted only one group of people. The virulence alone just SCREAMS engineered disease. It helps that when Patneaude was trying to get his characters to come to the same realization I'd had pages and pages earlier, he didn't just plant clues- he gave them enormous goddamn BILLBOARDS lit up with FLOODLIGHTS. It couldn't have been any clearer. And of course the instigator of this whole plan was a woman who was sexually abused- again, called it- and of course the government has been using the disease to target enclaves of men who get too powerful and of course they'll take anyone in as a political prisoner if they try to reveal the truth, big fat DUH.
And of course none of the adult women save for one teacher (who actually seems pretty cool) really tries to question this, because hey, maybe it is better now! And maybe at least it's better than being in prison!
I believe lack of protests in Atwood's Gilead because protestors were SHOT ON SIGHT. I don't believe them here, where they're just locked up in pretty nice apartments.
So, lessee... what else was predictable? Kellan ended up with the girl he was after, surprise surprise, despite me rooting for her to be queer the whole damn way; he discovered that the gov't was planning to release the disease and kill his dad omg!!!; like the idiot he is he rode straight into the center of the area under threat; he discovered the reason they're being killed is because they're developing a cure- the cure team is all women, so releasing the disease will do exactly nothing, by the way, and couldn't the gov't mole have told them that?- but WAIT! NEFARIOUS! Another team is developing a female version of the virus - CALLED IT - and they're about to release it and kill Kellen's would-be girlfriend like they killed her cousin oh no! But then they blow stuff up and run away, and it turns out that the cure Kellen and his dad were injected with works. Token other male character dies, everyone is sad, and they go home and stick it to the (wo)Man in classic 'You Can't Stop The Signal' style.
And yeah. I'm bored. Because you know, other people did it already and this society is unrealistic and the writing is unfantastic.
That's not to say this book didn't have some redeeming qualities. It gets the second star for being a dystopia with some interesting, if improbable, future history- and for the image of the titular Epitaph Road itself, with methane gas from thousands of decomposing corpses shooting out the top of a giant pipe and getting set on fire. That was eerie in a beautiful sort of way.
Conclusion: Read it if you're really into dystopia and will just devour everything on the subject; or conversely, if you're not used to dystopia and don't know what to look for in a properly constructed one and will thus miss the flaws here.
It's not a bad book, really. It just didn't meet my expectations.
This was supposed to be my counterpoint to The Handmaid's Tale for a big project on gender in dystopian science fiction. Unfortunately it is only today, four days after turning in said project, that I found via a review of this book the one I should have read instead: The Gate To Women's Country by Sherri S. Tepper. (I'll definitely track it down and read it later.)
Anyhow, here's the thing. Ya got your dystopias divided by gender. I'm totally cool with that. Atwood writes about a world in which females are completely repressed- fine and dandy.
HOWEVER.
When it comes to female-dominated societies.
Men. Cannot. Write. Them.
(With the possible exception of Orson Scott Card, though it's been a long time since I've read the first books of the Homecoming series.)
So maybe it's Patneaude who can't write them... but anyhow, here's why.
Women can write about male-dominated societies because, news flash, we live in one. No, no, don't argue with me on this because you will not win. (To be clear, I will discuss the U.S. only in the following; other countries have been more progressive but I'm most familliar with the U.S.) We have had no female presidents, no female vice presidents, and one female Speaker of the House. Our Congress is mostly male (in 2009 the Senate had a record 17 female members in the full hundred, and the House 74 out of three hundred plus), and while our Judiciary is making strides it's still not at the 5:4 male:female ration I would consider 'equal enough'. (Close, though! Maybe it will happen in my lifetime.) Women are, in their lifespan, paid less on the dollar than men for equal work. They are less likely to be CEOs or otherwise prominently placed in business. In many religions they are outright forbidden from being pastors/ministers/what have you.
In short, women are less involved in the critical decision-making at the top of most power structures.
Most of these decisions have historically been and continue to be made by men.
Thus, we live in a male-dominated society; a world run by a male mindset and characterized in meetings of power by interactions between men. It's relatively simple, then, to take the world we're familliar with and exaggerate it into a dystopia, or draw existing ideas to their logical (or sometimes, illogical) conclusions.
Patneaude is writing about a world which he has no way to predict. So he takes the easy way out. Basically, he substitutes feminine pronouns where necessary, mentions that nations now stretch over whole continents and that war has been eradicated, and calls it good.
And I, feminist, woman, read it and call it bull.
It's been thirty years since the event that killed off all the men but damn, everything looks much the same! Granted we hardly explore this world at all (for shame, Patneaude, for shame; there's so much potential) but what we see of it looks familliar- more eco-friendly, perhaps, but this is Seattle. I'd expect that with time alone. We still have rush hour traffic, police, secretive government meetings, mandatory education. The changes- abandoned houses, lack of crime, poverty, hunger, etc; accessibility of education- seem to be due more to the population decline than anything else.
And then there are the things that don't sound like something a female-controlled society would do at all. For instance, the Trials- the tests you take at age 14 that permit you to be a full member of society... and that if you fail, you cannot retake for three years. Seem a little off for this supposed utopia? Yeah. If they served a narrative purpose they might just get by, but they don't, really- just something for Kellan to forget about so we see how consuming his adventure was.
The fixation on boys, that's another thing. For heaven's sake, I'm not expecting this to be the Planet of the Lesbians, but there should be at least a few girls who get their sexual experimentation thing on with other girls- IE, not all of them should see Kellan as some kind of trophy. A curiosity, sure, but we know he's not that rare- there's even another guy in his class- so it doesn't warrant his treatment.
Here are a few things that I would have expected in a society that became female-dominated so quickly:
- Political turmoil as women formerly far underneath the top jobs had to pick up the reins (which I'll admit, Patneaude hinted at).
- Scientific turmoil as women, who do not comprise a majority of researchers, found themselves trying to interpret now-dead colleagues' working notes. (IE, unless the electric cars were around before the disaster, I don't expect to see them so well developed and widespread.)
- Difficulty in dispersion of news of the new era, and difficulty in solidifying those megacountries. You've just lost most of your airplane pilots, remember.
- Collapse of international infrastructure and economic confusion, if not outright panic- because there go all those CEOs and a lot of the traders- and the ones that are left now have quite a few dead investors.
- An immediate shift in focus to the most practical aspects of life: namely, farming, which means most people should have left the city and started farming.
Those are just a few changes that should have been accounted for and weren't. Some of them could have been negated had Patneaude mentioned a greater equality between men and women in the time before the disaster, but in fact it seemed from the snippets of the past we are shown that the opposite was true. (There is a possibility that said snippets are incorrect and were planted by the female gov't to make themselves look good; but as this book takes place only thirty years after the disaster it's unlikely they could get away with it.)
So there's that. But what about the plot?
Simplistic. Of course, the 'big secret' is that the disease was engineered by women. Was this a surprise to anyone, really? It was extremely virulent, spread through the most available medium around (air), and targeted only one group of people. The virulence alone just SCREAMS engineered disease. It helps that when Patneaude was trying to get his characters to come to the same realization I'd had pages and pages earlier, he didn't just plant clues- he gave them enormous goddamn BILLBOARDS lit up with FLOODLIGHTS. It couldn't have been any clearer. And of course the instigator of this whole plan was a woman who was sexually abused- again, called it- and of course the government has been using the disease to target enclaves of men who get too powerful and of course they'll take anyone in as a political prisoner if they try to reveal the truth, big fat DUH.
And of course none of the adult women save for one teacher (who actually seems pretty cool) really tries to question this, because hey, maybe it is better now! And maybe at least it's better than being in prison!
I believe lack of protests in Atwood's Gilead because protestors were SHOT ON SIGHT. I don't believe them here, where they're just locked up in pretty nice apartments.
So, lessee... what else was predictable? Kellan ended up with the girl he was after, surprise surprise, despite me rooting for her to be queer the whole damn way; he discovered that the gov't was planning to release the disease and kill his dad omg!!!; like the idiot he is he rode straight into the center of the area under threat; he discovered the reason they're being killed is because they're developing a cure- the cure team is all women, so releasing the disease will do exactly nothing, by the way, and couldn't the gov't mole have told them that?- but WAIT! NEFARIOUS! Another team is developing a female version of the virus - CALLED IT - and they're about to release it and kill Kellen's would-be girlfriend like they killed her cousin oh no! But then they blow stuff up and run away, and it turns out that the cure Kellen and his dad were injected with works. Token other male character dies, everyone is sad, and they go home and stick it to the (wo)Man in classic 'You Can't Stop The Signal' style.
And yeah. I'm bored. Because you know, other people did it already and this society is unrealistic and the writing is unfantastic.
That's not to say this book didn't have some redeeming qualities. It gets the second star for being a dystopia with some interesting, if improbable, future history- and for the image of the titular Epitaph Road itself, with methane gas from thousands of decomposing corpses shooting out the top of a giant pipe and getting set on fire. That was eerie in a beautiful sort of way.
Conclusion: Read it if you're really into dystopia and will just devour everything on the subject; or conversely, if you're not used to dystopia and don't know what to look for in a properly constructed one and will thus miss the flaws here.
It's not a bad book, really. It just didn't meet my expectations.
March 22, 2017
Ngggghhhh. This book had such good promise. SUCH good promise.
97% of men are dead? The women rule now? Men no longer allowed in charge because "they had their chance"? Oh god this could have gone so well.
I should've been tipped off the moment I saw the author was male. This society is not equal. It's just like it is now, just flip-flopped around - which, while that obviously has its issues in the real world, in a fictional story it is DAMNED satisfying to read if done properly. But, regardless of the fact that most men are dead, there's a wistful aura for how things used to be and an obvious underlying mood of how you're supposed to feel sorry for the men and all that. After just 30 years of flip-flopped oppression. 30 years. 30.
LIKE WE DON'T GET ENOUGH OF THAT PITY PARTY SHIT ALREADY IN REAL LIFE.
I mean. I was willing to wait it out till the end to see if it'd get any better but then I got to a bit of dialogue that basically went like: "How could women do this?" "Well, because all the world's problems and shittiness was because of men." "SOME men. What about the nice ones?"
:|
ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME.
No. No you are not pulling this shit. You have a PERFECT opportunity to discuss gender based oppression, sexism, and misogyny, and you choose to use that plotline to make you feel sorry for men and how bad they have it now.
NO. Just no. Yes, it did mention transgender men at one point, but then that was nulled by describing how sex work totally disappeared after women took charge and completely shaming those who did it by calling them mentally ill, desperate, or drug addicted. And FUCK there were certain parts and passages and just MY OWN MEMORIES that made me really not feel bad for the men in this book at all and not blame the women an OUNCE for what they did and it expects me to pity the male main character?
FUCK that shit.
God I was so looking forward to reading this too. Don't mind me as I spend a bit mourning the beauty this book could have been.
Seriously. Don't bother picking it up. If you have any ounce of
March 5, 2020
Not close to finishing it, but good God, I want to finish it and get it over with. Let's get the thing I hate THE MOST out of the way: The. Writing. Is. So. Bland. The author randomly alternates between describing stuff to a tee or not describing things at all; neither of which he does well. I can be sure to criticize this book even more once it is finally done, in which I will be sure to buy a copy to burn it in a fire to spare at least one poor soul from having to read it.
August 5, 2010
I've often wondered it myself . . . What would happen to our planet if women were in charge? Would hunger end? Wars cease? Would harmony prevail? In his book, EPITAPH ROAD, Northwest author David Patneaude seeks to answer these questions. The year is 2097. Ninety-seven percent of the human male population were wiped out thirty years previously due to an airborne virus. Women are now in charge . . . Patneaude deftly weaves a gritty tale, unpredictable and mesmerizing. The future setting is well-drawn, realistic, the scenario plausible, the writing solid. The story raises interesting ethical questions suitable for classroom discussion: Do the ends justify the means? What is peace? True peace? and "What price would you pay for a perfect world?"(Ages 12+)
Read an interview with David Patneaude at:
www.micheletorrey.com/an-interview-wi...
Read an interview with David Patneaude at:
www.micheletorrey.com/an-interview-wi...
November 4, 2012
huge waste of time. sad really had such an interesting premise...but went nowhere really, most of the characters were borderline stupid and the development was a drag duh i'm even to too elaborate...i have so much work to do and instead been wasting time with this shit
April 26, 2010
Epitaph Road just came out March 23, 2010. I read this was a good book to read while waiting for Mockingjay to come out in August. They were right. This book is amazing! It has the futuristic dystopia that Hunger Games has, but with a very different spin.
Basically Kellen is a boy born after what is called Elisha's Bear. Elisha's Bear is an event that happened on August 8, 2067 where most of the world's populations of males were killed. Now there are about 13 girls for every one boy. Life has changed. There is virtually no crime, no drugs, and no war. There are super countries. North America is all one country with San Diego as the capitol. Kellen is special because not only is he a boy, is a boy who has a real father--not just someone who was born in a dish and implanted in a mother. When Kellen learns that another outbreak of Elisha's Bear is coming and his father will be in danger, Kellen knows he must do something.
This book kept me from sleep long after I read it. I kept going over and over the book's events in my mind. I kept thinking about choices that some of the characters made. For example, is doing something that seems wrong sometimes good if it is for the benefit of the society at large? What about forcing other characters to do something even if it goes against their grain? Can people really be "good" or "bad" based on if they are male and female? What do stereotypes have to do with how society works/doesn't work? Can one person really make a difference in a big bad world? Why do teenagers and their mothers (or fathers) often see the world so differently? I could keep going. I told you I was thinking long after I should have been asleep!
Anyway, you get the idea. I am dying for fellow book readers to read this and talk about it! As far as I know this is a stand alone book. Good ending. A little opening for a sequel in this world...but who knows. Obviously I read this one book (and looked at the author's website and didn't see any hint of a sequel) and was still satisfied. It is amazing! Five power-house, golden stars. This book screams, "Read me quick so you can talk about me to all your friends!"
Basically Kellen is a boy born after what is called Elisha's Bear. Elisha's Bear is an event that happened on August 8, 2067 where most of the world's populations of males were killed. Now there are about 13 girls for every one boy. Life has changed. There is virtually no crime, no drugs, and no war. There are super countries. North America is all one country with San Diego as the capitol. Kellen is special because not only is he a boy, is a boy who has a real father--not just someone who was born in a dish and implanted in a mother. When Kellen learns that another outbreak of Elisha's Bear is coming and his father will be in danger, Kellen knows he must do something.
This book kept me from sleep long after I read it. I kept going over and over the book's events in my mind. I kept thinking about choices that some of the characters made. For example, is doing something that seems wrong sometimes good if it is for the benefit of the society at large? What about forcing other characters to do something even if it goes against their grain? Can people really be "good" or "bad" based on if they are male and female? What do stereotypes have to do with how society works/doesn't work? Can one person really make a difference in a big bad world? Why do teenagers and their mothers (or fathers) often see the world so differently? I could keep going. I told you I was thinking long after I should have been asleep!
Anyway, you get the idea. I am dying for fellow book readers to read this and talk about it! As far as I know this is a stand alone book. Good ending. A little opening for a sequel in this world...but who knows. Obviously I read this one book (and looked at the author's website and didn't see any hint of a sequel) and was still satisfied. It is amazing! Five power-house, golden stars. This book screams, "Read me quick so you can talk about me to all your friends!"
August 28, 2014
2 and a half star for Epitaph Road, we really need a half star here oh dear goodreads. I picked this book among the featured tables in the library. The premise of the synopsis made me think about the possibilities that could happen, but before I start scaring myself deeper in my own thoughts..I quickly made my way out of the library with that book in my hand. Patneaude painted a dystopian world of tomorrow (in the future like 2097..a very looong time from now, phew) where the population of man is decreasing and is infected by a virus called the Elisha Bear. Imagine this, all the boys and men are dying..and the next 'best' thing to control the world are...WOMEN!! Ok, opinions and debates about whole premise of the story aside, now the review of Patneaude's book.
I felt that he did not take his time and tell us more about PAC (The women in power). Their strength, their limitation, their capabilities, their rules, their punishments and etc. And when you have not establish that group yet, it felt as if the women in the group were zombies and didn't have that personality that you wished they had. Too many holes in the story. There was no driving force of how they wanted to make the world a better place (good or bad). I also felt that Patneaude's characters were the same like the PAC women. Not inspired by the conflict and situation of the problem instead saving his dad was more of his adventure with Tia and Sunday.
Reading Epitaph Road is like having a conversation with a zombie co-worker everyday. I felt that there was a lot he could tell from this idea but sadly, it didn't come through for me in this one.
I felt that he did not take his time and tell us more about PAC (The women in power). Their strength, their limitation, their capabilities, their rules, their punishments and etc. And when you have not establish that group yet, it felt as if the women in the group were zombies and didn't have that personality that you wished they had. Too many holes in the story. There was no driving force of how they wanted to make the world a better place (good or bad). I also felt that Patneaude's characters were the same like the PAC women. Not inspired by the conflict and situation of the problem instead saving his dad was more of his adventure with Tia and Sunday.
Reading Epitaph Road is like having a conversation with a zombie co-worker everyday. I felt that there was a lot he could tell from this idea but sadly, it didn't come through for me in this one.
February 15, 2019
I gave Epitaph Road a four because it has a unique plot most of the male population is wiped out by a disease and in this new world women have taken over governance of the worlds countries virtually ending war. Each chapter starts with an Epitaph for a man lost in the plague which are touching and well written. However I cant say the same for the character development. I never ended up really caring for any of the characters in the book and their relationships did not seem compelling. I definitely like this genre. I like speculative dystopian fiction but too often I see inventive possibly ingenious plots with lack luster characterization. Which is why its at a four.
October 24, 2016
That’s a huge blurb for such a short book. Surprisingly the book isn’t overwritten. If anything it’s underwritten and left some things to be desired.
I’m really torn on the whole premise because I don’t know if I was automatically looking for some kind of hidden meaning that wasn’t there or looking for an authorial motive or what. But I didn’t enjoy it like I wanted to. Thinking about it now I’m kind of irked that the main character is a boy. Lends itself to the whole magical white man saves the day thing going on. He had Hispanic female sidekicks but they were along for the ride. I just mean considering the world is 95% women it would have felt more natural that Sunday or Tia would be the ones to blow the lid off of everything, not Kellan. Since the girls did Hermione his Harry/Ron by handing him the information he needed to see into the conspiracy and he ended up getting the credit for it because of who his mom was. But Kellan was the main character so . . .
The premise doesn’t really surprise me. Something bad happens to one person and they go crazy and take it out on the world. Not an unknown thing to happen. It just didn’t feel spectacular to me. Plus this is one of those stories where the situation is reversed and those in positions of power are now subjugated. Should I feel bad? Eh. Do I agree with the tactics used to usurp men’s power? No. Way too extreme and irrational for me. Do I feel bad that for once in the history of human existence women are in power and are keeping men in check because obviously they can’t do anything right? Eh. I get it. #notallmen. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But as a woman who’s been on the receiving end of male oppression, you’re asking me to sympathize with an oppressor because they are now being oppressed. I can’t necessarily do that. Because I can’t support it nor can I reject it I end up being neutral and feeling nothing.
Not a good thing for a book. I think the author tried, but it’s a hard sell when you flip oppression. And then you have extremists on both sides and no one’s really all that sympathetic of a character and the MC is one of 8 boys left on the planet but of course he’s the one to bring it all down. It’s like my emotions have zig-zagged all over the place with this thing that I just come back to that neutral feeling and felt nothing.
I think there are far better post-apocalyptic/dystopian books out there than EPITAPH ROAD. Points for trying but I think the feelings a book like this invokes are far more confusion and something people would have a hard time figuring out one way or another. Not that people shouldn’t think about things like that, but I think it’ll ultimately take those thoughts far away from the book itself because the book itself isn’t that deep. Plus I don’t think the MC was right for the situation, like I’ve said above. The girls were the ones with the information yet the boy got the credit. It just inadvertently circled back on itself.
2.5
I’m really torn on the whole premise because I don’t know if I was automatically looking for some kind of hidden meaning that wasn’t there or looking for an authorial motive or what. But I didn’t enjoy it like I wanted to. Thinking about it now I’m kind of irked that the main character is a boy. Lends itself to the whole magical white man saves the day thing going on. He had Hispanic female sidekicks but they were along for the ride. I just mean considering the world is 95% women it would have felt more natural that Sunday or Tia would be the ones to blow the lid off of everything, not Kellan. Since the girls did Hermione his Harry/Ron by handing him the information he needed to see into the conspiracy and he ended up getting the credit for it because of who his mom was. But Kellan was the main character so . . .
The premise doesn’t really surprise me. Something bad happens to one person and they go crazy and take it out on the world. Not an unknown thing to happen. It just didn’t feel spectacular to me. Plus this is one of those stories where the situation is reversed and those in positions of power are now subjugated. Should I feel bad? Eh. Do I agree with the tactics used to usurp men’s power? No. Way too extreme and irrational for me. Do I feel bad that for once in the history of human existence women are in power and are keeping men in check because obviously they can’t do anything right? Eh. I get it. #notallmen. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But as a woman who’s been on the receiving end of male oppression, you’re asking me to sympathize with an oppressor because they are now being oppressed. I can’t necessarily do that. Because I can’t support it nor can I reject it I end up being neutral and feeling nothing.
Not a good thing for a book. I think the author tried, but it’s a hard sell when you flip oppression. And then you have extremists on both sides and no one’s really all that sympathetic of a character and the MC is one of 8 boys left on the planet but of course he’s the one to bring it all down. It’s like my emotions have zig-zagged all over the place with this thing that I just come back to that neutral feeling and felt nothing.
I think there are far better post-apocalyptic/dystopian books out there than EPITAPH ROAD. Points for trying but I think the feelings a book like this invokes are far more confusion and something people would have a hard time figuring out one way or another. Not that people shouldn’t think about things like that, but I think it’ll ultimately take those thoughts far away from the book itself because the book itself isn’t that deep. Plus I don’t think the MC was right for the situation, like I’ve said above. The girls were the ones with the information yet the boy got the credit. It just inadvertently circled back on itself.
2.5
February 27, 2017
The shocker of this novel wasn’t really one for me. I found myself highly suspicious of the onset of a plague that targeted precisely one half of the human race and ran its course in only 16 days. Did no one think to question a plague that wiped out only men and periodically surfaced and disappeared for no apparent reason until 30 years after its initial appearance? I figured it had to be the work of bungling males who thought to use Elisha’s Bear (the name of the plague—points if you get the reference without Googling) as biological warfare or angry females. Guess which?
That obvious mystery dispensed with, the reader’s attention centers on young Kellen. And I do mean centers. Kellen admits that the world before Elisha was headed towards disaster. He admits that he wouldn’t want to go back to a world filled with poverty, hunger, crime, disease, greed, dishonesty, prejudice, war, genocide, religious bigotry, runaway population growth, abuse of the environment, immigration strife and you-get-the-leftovers educational policies and a hundred other horrors.
In a society that’s largely female, I expected to find some mention of homosexual relationships, both male and female. I expected to find detailing of just how the world had become better for women or just had become better in general. But the book doesn’t show how the world is better; it merely tells us and in only a few brief passages at that.
The main focus of the book is on Kellen and his adolescent discontent, his nervousness about girls and his wish to live alone with his father. As a male, his future options are limited. He can only get non-threatening jobs like teacher, salesman, therapist, engineer, actor, architect, doctor, dentist, singer, etc. Wow, really? Those are his limited options? Try being limited to being a housewife and then you can complain, you sad little loser.
With all these choices open to him, Kellen’s dearest wish is that he could chuck civilization, run into the hinterlands and live on a fishing boat with dear old Dad. His father is one of those men who escape periodic outbreaks of Elisha by hiding in the woods and Kellen can’t wait to join him. So, instead of staying in civilization where he could make a difference, he wants to run away and live on the water, becoming a hillbilly like Huckleberry Finn.
The person behind the outbreaks is shown as a cold-hearted shrew, a thorough villainess who is childishly nicknamed Mack the Knife. She’s given some motivation for her decision to eradicate the human male population but she’s still portrayed as a cartoonish, one-dimensional nasty piece of work.
The novel doesn’t bother with social commentary once the main mystery is exposed. Kellen learns about another planned outbreak of Elisha and races off to warn his father. This book is like every poorly plotted science fiction movie where the central issue is dispensed or ground up with chase scenes, gunplay and explosions. What a disappointment.
That obvious mystery dispensed with, the reader’s attention centers on young Kellen. And I do mean centers. Kellen admits that the world before Elisha was headed towards disaster. He admits that he wouldn’t want to go back to a world filled with poverty, hunger, crime, disease, greed, dishonesty, prejudice, war, genocide, religious bigotry, runaway population growth, abuse of the environment, immigration strife and you-get-the-leftovers educational policies and a hundred other horrors.
In a society that’s largely female, I expected to find some mention of homosexual relationships, both male and female. I expected to find detailing of just how the world had become better for women or just had become better in general. But the book doesn’t show how the world is better; it merely tells us and in only a few brief passages at that.
The main focus of the book is on Kellen and his adolescent discontent, his nervousness about girls and his wish to live alone with his father. As a male, his future options are limited. He can only get non-threatening jobs like teacher, salesman, therapist, engineer, actor, architect, doctor, dentist, singer, etc. Wow, really? Those are his limited options? Try being limited to being a housewife and then you can complain, you sad little loser.
With all these choices open to him, Kellen’s dearest wish is that he could chuck civilization, run into the hinterlands and live on a fishing boat with dear old Dad. His father is one of those men who escape periodic outbreaks of Elisha by hiding in the woods and Kellen can’t wait to join him. So, instead of staying in civilization where he could make a difference, he wants to run away and live on the water, becoming a hillbilly like Huckleberry Finn.
The person behind the outbreaks is shown as a cold-hearted shrew, a thorough villainess who is childishly nicknamed Mack the Knife. She’s given some motivation for her decision to eradicate the human male population but she’s still portrayed as a cartoonish, one-dimensional nasty piece of work.
The novel doesn’t bother with social commentary once the main mystery is exposed. Kellen learns about another planned outbreak of Elisha and races off to warn his father. This book is like every poorly plotted science fiction movie where the central issue is dispensed or ground up with chase scenes, gunplay and explosions. What a disappointment.
January 20, 2016
A kind of dreary beginning, a middle with real zip, and a fumbled ending => worth reading only if you like the setting or situation. The situation is kind of a post-apocalyptic near future where the vast majority of males have been wiped out by some sex-linked plague. Women take over all government and strictly limit men's ability to participate in society, and somehow that magically makes everything better. One example: military spending diverted to social betterment somehow accomplishes it, ignoring the fact that social spending was already 2/3 of government spending when this book was published and wasn't getting it done. Also, I haven't lived around a lot of females (no sisters, no daughters) but even I know women aren't inherently less aggressive than men (can be more abusive: http://phys.org/news/2006-07-women-pe..., http://web.csulb.edu/~mfiebert/assaul... also just as aggressive as men when deindividuated: http://psp.sagepub.com/content/20/1/3...).
I wondered if the author set this up for the main characters to discover that the utopia really wasn't over the course of the story. After the intro finally gets out of the way, it looks like they will find out, and it turns out the current situation didn't happen accidentally, but then the author seems to think that kind of utopia really would have happened under these circumstances.
The story gets much better once it focuses on the characters and their situation instead of the world. The action is suspenseful and exciting and things play out semi-believably given the setting and if you kind of ignore the Internet (which still exists here). The resolution to the action is pretty satisfying.
But the ending is awkward, stilted and implausible. Several things that could have been done aren't, and what actually happens only works if those in charge suddenly become less totalitarian and somehow don't mind their regime being torn apart literally in front of their eyes. There's a chunk of good material here and the middle story is really good, but it's pretty obvious the author was trying to fit the story into an existing idea instead of setting up the situation and asking, "what would people do in this setting?"
I wondered if the author set this up for the main characters to discover that the utopia really wasn't over the course of the story. After the intro finally gets out of the way, it looks like they will find out, and it turns out the current situation didn't happen accidentally, but then the author seems to think that kind of utopia really would have happened under these circumstances.
The story gets much better once it focuses on the characters and their situation instead of the world. The action is suspenseful and exciting and things play out semi-believably given the setting and if you kind of ignore the Internet (which still exists here). The resolution to the action is pretty satisfying.
But the ending is awkward, stilted and implausible. Several things that could have been done aren't, and what actually happens only works if those in charge suddenly become less totalitarian and somehow don't mind their regime being torn apart literally in front of their eyes. There's a chunk of good material here and the middle story is really good, but it's pretty obvious the author was trying to fit the story into an existing idea instead of setting up the situation and asking, "what would people do in this setting?"
January 31, 2013
I wanted to like this book - I really did - but it required so much suspension of disbelief that I just couldn't get into it. The premise is that in 2067, an epidemic called Elisha's Bear wiped out 97% of the male population. Ok, an interesting concept - a mostly female society where surely the men are venerated, put on a pedestal, and valued for their ability to help propagate the species, right?
Nope. Within 30 years, men are the new subjugated minority, discriminated against, some exiled. The book talks a little bit about how men have to apply to be sperm donors and are held to an even higher standard to be fathers. Meanwhile, the predominantly female world has gotten rid of everything terrible - rape, war, drug abuse, murder, hunger, etc - all this in the course of a single generation. Now, I'm a pretty ardent feminist, but I think this author has women on a crazy high pedestal, and perhaps I'm a cynic, but I think that if most women lost all of their their husbands, sons, brothers, boyfriends, male friends, etc, they would be incredibly grief-stricken, seek an escape, and substance abuse would likely spike, not go away completely. (Pardon the terrible run-on sentence.)
Fastforward to midway through the book... (spoiler alert, not that I'm recommending you actually read this book) It turns out the epidemic that wiped out the vast majority of the male population was manufactured by one very angry biochemist with a history of sexual abuse. So she, alone, was able to disseminate this virus via new products from Coca Cola and Starbucks, and all of the other women simply went along with it? I don't think so.
And after all of that, the end was totally unfulfilling. Maybe there's a sequel coming and the book was meant to end on an ambiguous note so that you rush out and buy the next book, but I'm perfectly happy to let well enough alone and never know how this dystopia turns out.
Nope. Within 30 years, men are the new subjugated minority, discriminated against, some exiled. The book talks a little bit about how men have to apply to be sperm donors and are held to an even higher standard to be fathers. Meanwhile, the predominantly female world has gotten rid of everything terrible - rape, war, drug abuse, murder, hunger, etc - all this in the course of a single generation. Now, I'm a pretty ardent feminist, but I think this author has women on a crazy high pedestal, and perhaps I'm a cynic, but I think that if most women lost all of their their husbands, sons, brothers, boyfriends, male friends, etc, they would be incredibly grief-stricken, seek an escape, and substance abuse would likely spike, not go away completely. (Pardon the terrible run-on sentence.)
Fastforward to midway through the book... (spoiler alert, not that I'm recommending you actually read this book) It turns out the epidemic that wiped out the vast majority of the male population was manufactured by one very angry biochemist with a history of sexual abuse. So she, alone, was able to disseminate this virus via new products from Coca Cola and Starbucks, and all of the other women simply went along with it? I don't think so.
And after all of that, the end was totally unfulfilling. Maybe there's a sequel coming and the book was meant to end on an ambiguous note so that you rush out and buy the next book, but I'm perfectly happy to let well enough alone and never know how this dystopia turns out.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
April 26, 2010
I've really become a fan of dystopia books and while predictable I really enjoyed this one. The book was paced nicely and the characters were all engaging. The book opens up with Kellen's father as a young boy first hearing about this plague that is wiping out almost every male it comes in contact with. He is out camping with his mother and sister and anxiously awaits to see if his father made it out of town before the plague hits. Then it switches to Kellen's point of view. I found it most interesting that apparently once women were able to be in charge with little influence of men supposedly war, poverty and crime were wiped out. I've sometimes wondered what it would be like if women were in charge. Are we really that different from men once women come to power?
Kellen teams up with two female cousins, Tia and Sunday, who are boarding in his mother's home. Both are spunky characters but you are kept wondering about the feelings of both towards Kellen. It would have been nice to have that more fully explored but the fact that it is not dwelled upon more might make this book more appealing to male teens. Like I mentioned above the revelation about if this disease outbreak was an accident or not was predictable as was what happens in the end but it was still a thoroughly enjoyable read.
Kellen teams up with two female cousins, Tia and Sunday, who are boarding in his mother's home. Both are spunky characters but you are kept wondering about the feelings of both towards Kellen. It would have been nice to have that more fully explored but the fact that it is not dwelled upon more might make this book more appealing to male teens. Like I mentioned above the revelation about if this disease outbreak was an accident or not was predictable as was what happens in the end but it was still a thoroughly enjoyable read.
January 21, 2010
Kellen lives in the late 2000s. In 2067 his grandfather and a whopping majority of men the world over were wiped out by a virus afterwards referred to as "Elisha's Bear." Kellen's birth is fairly unusual in that he is a male born of a actual man (not a preselected sperm)and woman. He is used to being the center of attention. Because subsequent viruses have kept the male population of earth well in check, females either excited to be near him, curious, or regard him with open hostility and suspicion. Kellen is befriended by two females his own age, Sunday and Tia, and the three of them gradually learn that the nearly "perfect" society created by females may not be exactly what it seems. And his own mother may be instrumental in some devious machinations.
I liked this book. It moved at a quick pace and I liked how the author handled the questions of are all women gentle and good? Are all men bad and aggressive? Does one horrible act justify another? How would society restore balance? The ending is solid but leaves wiggle room for a possible sequel. I think junior high school kids would really enjoy this.
I liked this book. It moved at a quick pace and I liked how the author handled the questions of are all women gentle and good? Are all men bad and aggressive? Does one horrible act justify another? How would society restore balance? The ending is solid but leaves wiggle room for a possible sequel. I think junior high school kids would really enjoy this.
March 19, 2011
Dystopia is not my genre of choice, but I picked this up because the author is coming to visit our school and the 7th grade is reading this book in preparation. Turns out it's not a classical dystopia, but a riff on utopia at a price, ala Lowry's The Giver. In this case, the price was the loss of 95% of the earth's men to a deadly plague. After they were gone, the earth was run much better by women, who decided to maintain the 5%/95% ratio of men to women. The loss is shown in the chapter headings, which are epitaphs for some of the millions of men who died, including the main character's grandfather. The main character, Kellen, is one of the few boys in the world.
This book moved quickly, and was compelling enough for me to read at one sitting. I liked the characters and the Northwest setting (how often does Port Angeles, however altered, appear in books?), though I think that overall there was too much black and white in the book, and a bit too much didacticism. But that probably won't bother kids, and while the "mystery" was blindingly obvious from the first, there's a second mystery you don't even suspect until the climax, so it was nice to be surprised.
This book moved quickly, and was compelling enough for me to read at one sitting. I liked the characters and the Northwest setting (how often does Port Angeles, however altered, appear in books?), though I think that overall there was too much black and white in the book, and a bit too much didacticism. But that probably won't bother kids, and while the "mystery" was blindingly obvious from the first, there's a second mystery you don't even suspect until the climax, so it was nice to be surprised.
February 11, 2011
Where do I even start? This was a short-sighted vision of eighty years in the future, never mind a future where 95% of the male population was killed off. It was just a mess. Eighty years from now with no men, apparently we’re all still stuck in traffic, just in electric cars that make fake engine noises so people can hear them coming, there’s no crime or prisons now that the men are gone, but the library still has security guards to watch for theft, and while there’s an offhand mention of women moving into houses together for “companionship” there isn’t really any explanation of what happened to marriage as a cultural institution or how this whole procreation thing works now that all the dudes are gone or hiding out in the woods because they’re not welcome in the wonderful, but totalitarian society the women created.
Plus, that was the best we could come up with for a plot? A woman who was abused by a man so she went evil and tried to kill them all? This was just as bad as Y The Last Man, but in a different way. I want an all-the-men-died story written by a woman.
Plus, that was the best we could come up with for a plot? A woman who was abused by a man so she went evil and tried to kill them all? This was just as bad as Y The Last Man, but in a different way. I want an all-the-men-died story written by a woman.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
July 26, 2014
Epitaph Road features a unique plot for a dystopian, post-apocalyptic book--most of the male population is wiped out by a disease, and in this new world, women have taken over governance of the world's countries virtually ending war. Each chapter starts with an Epitaph for a man lost in the plague, which are touching and well written. However, I can’t say the same for the character development. I never ended up really caring for any of the characters in the book, and their relationships did not seem compelling.
I’m definitely a sucker for this genre. I love speculative dystopian fiction, but too often I see inventive, possibly ingenious plots, with lack luster characterization. Bummer--Epitaph Road belongs in this stack.
Epitaph Road
I’m definitely a sucker for this genre. I love speculative dystopian fiction, but too often I see inventive, possibly ingenious plots, with lack luster characterization. Bummer--Epitaph Road belongs in this stack.
Epitaph Road
July 14, 2010
This book has a really good premise, but some major issues.
The idea that 99% of the world's male population is taken out by a plague is fascinating. But then to have the world's left over female population decide that they like the odds and keep the population in control is a bit of a stretch.
The plot moves along slowly, but with enough suspense and adventure that it keeps the reader entertained. I had problems with the teenagers being the major heroes of the book and discovering the giant secret and then solving all the world's problems.
The book had such a far fetched story that at least some plot points needed to be realistic for it to earn all 5 stars.
Not the best dystopic novel I've read, far from it in fact.
The idea that 99% of the world's male population is taken out by a plague is fascinating. But then to have the world's left over female population decide that they like the odds and keep the population in control is a bit of a stretch.
The plot moves along slowly, but with enough suspense and adventure that it keeps the reader entertained. I had problems with the teenagers being the major heroes of the book and discovering the giant secret and then solving all the world's problems.
The book had such a far fetched story that at least some plot points needed to be realistic for it to earn all 5 stars.
Not the best dystopic novel I've read, far from it in fact.
June 8, 2014
Epitaph road showed the good and bad sides of men and women, but showed that kids, who are new to the world, and have a different view, can have a huge impact. It was a really thought provoking book, and I enjoyed every minute of it. All people should read it because it showed what could happen if the human race continues on the path it is blazing at this very moment. What would you do if you were in the same position as Kellen, Tia, or Summer?
January 12, 2014
What if a truly brilliant man-hating scientist decided that the world was better off without men? Explore Kellen's world and the reality he comes to grips with and the role his own mother may have played in the slaughter of two thirds of the world's men.
December 1, 2016
Wow, the reviews for this were a lot harsher than I expected. No, this book doesn't exactly provide an in depth look at how society is shaped by gender stereotypes or how the world would be different if women were in charge instead of men, and whenever or not people's disappointment or bitterness is reflected in the reviews, I don't care. I just stumbled upon this on the library one day, thought it looked interesting, and picked it up. So from my perspective, from a reader that didn't know of this books existence before it was released, had no hype or expectations for it whatsoever, this novel is...
okay. Intriguing enough for an afternoon of reading, but nothing that shook the foundations of how I perceived gender roles and humankind. I agree with others that this was an extremely promising premise that was not used to it's full potential, but I am not going to judge this book on what it's not. There's still the possibility of future works of literature tackling this idea again. I am going to judge this book on what it is, a short, interesting, tragically dark yet hopeful story.
SPOILERS AHEAD!
I suppose I should explain in depth what this book is about. A plague called Elisha's Bear wiped out 97% of the male population 30 years prior to the story's beginning, set in 2097. (Man, I am going to be an old biddy by then...makes you think.) Since then, women have taken charge of society and taken measures to make sure the male population stays low, so there is a 5%-95% ratio between men and women, respectively. Since then, war has supposedly become nonexistent, crime has dropped off so much that criminals are now kept in sweet apartments instead of cells, world hunger and climate change is a thing of the past, etc etc. It feels kind of artificial though, when the main character, a 14 year old boy named Kellan, just tells us all of these things instead of showing us. Yeah, we see the environment is healthy later on and the characters visit their detained teacher in her apartment at the end, but it wasn't enough. Especially when we explore this new society's problems.
To the surprise of absolutely no one, it turns out the plague was designed and created by a woman named Rebecca Mack, who was raped by her step-father and saw the same step-dad physically abuse and eventually kill her mother. It was distributed through free samples of an energy drink from Coca Cola's as well as Starbucks and McDonald's. I haven't gone near any establishment since... I wonder if any of these companies are going to sue this author? The regular outbreaks of the plague following the first strike was to wipe out male populations trying to change the society that oppresses them.
At this point, I was worried this was going to turn into a black and white, good vs evil battle, but I was pleasantly surprised. Kellan and his friends, Sunday and Septiembre, Tia for short, (the most pretentious names of all time goes to...) are researching the homework their teacher assigned them, discovering the truth when they find the connection between the selected news articles, and read about a particular colony of men living in the wilderness, planning a rebellion. The government releases the plague over the area, killing all of them, and discover that many women were kidnapped and held as sex slaves for the town.
This really hit the nail on the head, helped sell this new society the author built when he fumbled with the sale's pitch at the beginning. At first, you hear about these rebellious men and you think, "yeah! These men are standing up for their rights, they deserve better than that!"
Then you get that important tidbit of information that they set up a sex slave ring and all sympathy for them goes down the drain. Before this point, the society shown to us seems to be an unfair extreme, like a feminazi's dream come true to make men feel the same way women did before 1919, but then the first group we see fighting back seems to justify their prejudice and makes you second guess yourself, maybe this government isn't as bad as it seems. The climax of the story takes this concept and cranks it up to one hundred and eleven. Major spoilers inbound!
Kellan and his friends find out that the government plans to release Elisha's Bear over a fishing colony of men where his father lives, and goes to warn them. They do find Kellan's father as well as his friend and seek shelter at a scientific facility when the government's closing in on them.
It doesn't take a mastermind to figure out what's going to happen from the creepy way the head scientist acts and how increasingly upset Sunday becomes when Kellan doesn't return her affection. The scientists have been developing a female version of Elisha's Bear and are planning to unleash it on the world. When Sunday runs off in a huff, she gets caught and becomes a test subject.
Her death scene actually shocked me. I didn't think this novel was going to be one that took risks, but no, the conflict is made personal when Sunday is cruelly axed off. The way it's described, how she quickly succumbs to the plague, how she runs her bloodied hand down the glass isolation chamber and mutters that single word, "run"... It comes out of nowhere and it ramps up the suspense so much.
And from there, it's a blur, a race against the clock to stop the release of the plague. There's a brief moment where I was wondering if Kellan would consider letting the plague out, as he is a male that's been oppressed by women his entire life, but he barely hesitates as he thinks of all the daughters, mothers, grandmothers, aunts, nieces, and wives that will be killed. I believe this makes Kellan the final link in the circle the author made. As the women who think that men are selfish creatures who will mess up society for their own gain and need to be kept in check, and men think that women are cruel oppressors who need to be reminded of their place, Kellan represents the middle route, the people who recognize that both genders are essential for a complete society and are not confined to specific jobs, unless society chooses to enforce social stereotypes and acceptable norms. They are also not blinded by hate and know that they're are people with loving and meaningful relationships with people of, *gasp*, the opposite sex!
So Kellan, his father, and "Septiembre", stop the plague and save the day, but sadly, the father's fishing friend caught a strain of the Elisha's Bear and doesn't make it. (I am, so choked up you, guys, seriously...) They convince the government not to release the plague on the village, and after that, the last twist of the story is revealed...
Kellan's mother contributed to the development of the original plague, which by the way, killed Kellan's grandfather.
That really does not help the whole "women are heartless monsters" stereotype this book sets up. She helped in the murder of millions and was willing to kill the father of her child just because of some "suspicious activity?" I feel sorry for Kellan, because he doesn't really have much family aside from his father after he emotionally disowns his mother. Really, he had no choice but to disown her! How could you not after learning something like that?!
But there's one more scheme to pull off. Kellan and Septiembre leak the truth on the internet for all the teenagers of the world to see, and the novel ends on an ambiguous note, letting the reader decide what their future will hold, and perhaps, what they will do to make their own future brighter for all.
This novel has a strong premise, and successfully paints a picture where two extremes clearly exist, but good and evil do not. Yet the story leaves a lot to be desired. It feels capped by it's YA format, as I feel the author could have gone into more depth if he had a more mature tone to work with. Think about how much more impact the story could have had if we got to see the rescued sex slaves, if they protagonists were able to talk to them about the horrible things they went through, instead of it just being safely alluded to? Maybe if they're was an actual attempted rape or rape scene? I know, rape is so traumatic that people don't even want to see it portrayed in fiction, but as it is a big element of the story behind the scenes, using it in the foreground could have made for even stronger gray morality and more memorable food for thought. And it's not just rape to consider. In a society with 97% women, surely there would be a lot of lesbians around? But it's not mentioned at all! It feels kind of condescending, as if the YA audience is too immature to handle the idea of homosexuality. Maybe THAT'S why a lot of people hate this book so much...?
Either way, Epitaph Road is an above average novel with a slightly wasted premise, the author just needed to take some more risks and maybe craft some more memorable characters in order to create a truly intriguing story.
okay. Intriguing enough for an afternoon of reading, but nothing that shook the foundations of how I perceived gender roles and humankind. I agree with others that this was an extremely promising premise that was not used to it's full potential, but I am not going to judge this book on what it's not. There's still the possibility of future works of literature tackling this idea again. I am going to judge this book on what it is, a short, interesting, tragically dark yet hopeful story.
SPOILERS AHEAD!
I suppose I should explain in depth what this book is about. A plague called Elisha's Bear wiped out 97% of the male population 30 years prior to the story's beginning, set in 2097. (Man, I am going to be an old biddy by then...makes you think.) Since then, women have taken charge of society and taken measures to make sure the male population stays low, so there is a 5%-95% ratio between men and women, respectively. Since then, war has supposedly become nonexistent, crime has dropped off so much that criminals are now kept in sweet apartments instead of cells, world hunger and climate change is a thing of the past, etc etc. It feels kind of artificial though, when the main character, a 14 year old boy named Kellan, just tells us all of these things instead of showing us. Yeah, we see the environment is healthy later on and the characters visit their detained teacher in her apartment at the end, but it wasn't enough. Especially when we explore this new society's problems.
To the surprise of absolutely no one, it turns out the plague was designed and created by a woman named Rebecca Mack, who was raped by her step-father and saw the same step-dad physically abuse and eventually kill her mother. It was distributed through free samples of an energy drink from Coca Cola's as well as Starbucks and McDonald's. I haven't gone near any establishment since... I wonder if any of these companies are going to sue this author? The regular outbreaks of the plague following the first strike was to wipe out male populations trying to change the society that oppresses them.
At this point, I was worried this was going to turn into a black and white, good vs evil battle, but I was pleasantly surprised. Kellan and his friends, Sunday and Septiembre, Tia for short, (the most pretentious names of all time goes to...) are researching the homework their teacher assigned them, discovering the truth when they find the connection between the selected news articles, and read about a particular colony of men living in the wilderness, planning a rebellion. The government releases the plague over the area, killing all of them, and discover that many women were kidnapped and held as sex slaves for the town.
This really hit the nail on the head, helped sell this new society the author built when he fumbled with the sale's pitch at the beginning. At first, you hear about these rebellious men and you think, "yeah! These men are standing up for their rights, they deserve better than that!"
Then you get that important tidbit of information that they set up a sex slave ring and all sympathy for them goes down the drain. Before this point, the society shown to us seems to be an unfair extreme, like a feminazi's dream come true to make men feel the same way women did before 1919, but then the first group we see fighting back seems to justify their prejudice and makes you second guess yourself, maybe this government isn't as bad as it seems. The climax of the story takes this concept and cranks it up to one hundred and eleven. Major spoilers inbound!
Kellan and his friends find out that the government plans to release Elisha's Bear over a fishing colony of men where his father lives, and goes to warn them. They do find Kellan's father as well as his friend and seek shelter at a scientific facility when the government's closing in on them.
It doesn't take a mastermind to figure out what's going to happen from the creepy way the head scientist acts and how increasingly upset Sunday becomes when Kellan doesn't return her affection. The scientists have been developing a female version of Elisha's Bear and are planning to unleash it on the world. When Sunday runs off in a huff, she gets caught and becomes a test subject.
Her death scene actually shocked me. I didn't think this novel was going to be one that took risks, but no, the conflict is made personal when Sunday is cruelly axed off. The way it's described, how she quickly succumbs to the plague, how she runs her bloodied hand down the glass isolation chamber and mutters that single word, "run"... It comes out of nowhere and it ramps up the suspense so much.
And from there, it's a blur, a race against the clock to stop the release of the plague. There's a brief moment where I was wondering if Kellan would consider letting the plague out, as he is a male that's been oppressed by women his entire life, but he barely hesitates as he thinks of all the daughters, mothers, grandmothers, aunts, nieces, and wives that will be killed. I believe this makes Kellan the final link in the circle the author made. As the women who think that men are selfish creatures who will mess up society for their own gain and need to be kept in check, and men think that women are cruel oppressors who need to be reminded of their place, Kellan represents the middle route, the people who recognize that both genders are essential for a complete society and are not confined to specific jobs, unless society chooses to enforce social stereotypes and acceptable norms. They are also not blinded by hate and know that they're are people with loving and meaningful relationships with people of, *gasp*, the opposite sex!
So Kellan, his father, and "Septiembre", stop the plague and save the day, but sadly, the father's fishing friend caught a strain of the Elisha's Bear and doesn't make it. (I am, so choked up you, guys, seriously...) They convince the government not to release the plague on the village, and after that, the last twist of the story is revealed...
Kellan's mother contributed to the development of the original plague, which by the way, killed Kellan's grandfather.
That really does not help the whole "women are heartless monsters" stereotype this book sets up. She helped in the murder of millions and was willing to kill the father of her child just because of some "suspicious activity?" I feel sorry for Kellan, because he doesn't really have much family aside from his father after he emotionally disowns his mother. Really, he had no choice but to disown her! How could you not after learning something like that?!
But there's one more scheme to pull off. Kellan and Septiembre leak the truth on the internet for all the teenagers of the world to see, and the novel ends on an ambiguous note, letting the reader decide what their future will hold, and perhaps, what they will do to make their own future brighter for all.
This novel has a strong premise, and successfully paints a picture where two extremes clearly exist, but good and evil do not. Yet the story leaves a lot to be desired. It feels capped by it's YA format, as I feel the author could have gone into more depth if he had a more mature tone to work with. Think about how much more impact the story could have had if we got to see the rescued sex slaves, if they protagonists were able to talk to them about the horrible things they went through, instead of it just being safely alluded to? Maybe if they're was an actual attempted rape or rape scene? I know, rape is so traumatic that people don't even want to see it portrayed in fiction, but as it is a big element of the story behind the scenes, using it in the foreground could have made for even stronger gray morality and more memorable food for thought. And it's not just rape to consider. In a society with 97% women, surely there would be a lot of lesbians around? But it's not mentioned at all! It feels kind of condescending, as if the YA audience is too immature to handle the idea of homosexuality. Maybe THAT'S why a lot of people hate this book so much...?
Either way, Epitaph Road is an above average novel with a slightly wasted premise, the author just needed to take some more risks and maybe craft some more memorable characters in order to create a truly intriguing story.
January 13, 2018
Una buena oportunidad de hablar sobre el Poder: desperdiciada.
Como ocurrió y ocurre con los grandes genocidios del mundo real, esta novela de ficción reduce la razón del más grande genocidio del planeta a la locura irracional de una sola persona que tuvo una infancia poco feliz.
Los medios y la escuela ya nos contaron infinidad de mentiras sobre las guerras, sus campos de concentración y las grandes matanzas humanas. Infantilmente nos enseñan que todo aquello fue consecuencia de algún líder desquiciado que fue capaz de llevar adelante, él solo, semejante carnicería.
Como bien escuchamos todos alguna vez, la historia la escriben los vencedores. Ergo, la historia que nos enseñan es SIEMPRE una mentira.
La verdad es que no necesito y no esperaba encontrar en una novela de ficción otra mentira de estas.
Escribir debiera servir para permitirnos vislumbrar en un universo ficcional lo que la historia oficial ni los medios de difusión ni la escuela jamás nos van a decir: que los genocidios son un producto directo de la más pura racionalidad de aquellos que ostentan el poder.
Así, esta novela terminaría siendo apenas otro ladrillo más de aquella pared con la que nos ocultan cómo operan verdaderamente los grandes poderes del mundo.
Como ocurrió y ocurre con los grandes genocidios del mundo real, esta novela de ficción reduce la razón del más grande genocidio del planeta a la locura irracional de una sola persona que tuvo una infancia poco feliz.
Los medios y la escuela ya nos contaron infinidad de mentiras sobre las guerras, sus campos de concentración y las grandes matanzas humanas. Infantilmente nos enseñan que todo aquello fue consecuencia de algún líder desquiciado que fue capaz de llevar adelante, él solo, semejante carnicería.
Como bien escuchamos todos alguna vez, la historia la escriben los vencedores. Ergo, la historia que nos enseñan es SIEMPRE una mentira.
La verdad es que no necesito y no esperaba encontrar en una novela de ficción otra mentira de estas.
Escribir debiera servir para permitirnos vislumbrar en un universo ficcional lo que la historia oficial ni los medios de difusión ni la escuela jamás nos van a decir: que los genocidios son un producto directo de la más pura racionalidad de aquellos que ostentan el poder.
Así, esta novela terminaría siendo apenas otro ladrillo más de aquella pared con la que nos ocultan cómo operan verdaderamente los grandes poderes del mundo.
December 5, 2017
(I took a break from this book so I don’t really remember the beginning.)
People who are complaining about this book not being about women ruling the world and stuff aren’t correct in how the story is written. Yes, women rule the world, but the story is that they took it by force. The story is that men and women are always fighting for power - as you can see by Rebecca Mack killing off most of the men, and Dr. Wapner trying to kill all the women. This book’s main focus isn’t that women rule the world, I mean, yes, women ruling the world is part of it, but not the main focus like some of these reviews are thinking.
Anyway, something I didn’t like about the book was that sometimes when Kellen says something, he acts like he’s been saying it the whole time, like with liking Tia.
People who are complaining about this book not being about women ruling the world and stuff aren’t correct in how the story is written. Yes, women rule the world, but the story is that they took it by force. The story is that men and women are always fighting for power - as you can see by Rebecca Mack killing off most of the men, and Dr. Wapner trying to kill all the women. This book’s main focus isn’t that women rule the world, I mean, yes, women ruling the world is part of it, but not the main focus like some of these reviews are thinking.
Anyway, something I didn’t like about the book was that sometimes when Kellen says something, he acts like he’s been saying it the whole time, like with liking Tia.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
September 6, 2017
It seems Dystopia is a very hot genre with the younger set, and this book stands out in that crowd. As with most dystopian visions, this begins with a quiet apocalypse, followed, many years later, by a trio of curious teens who find they are much closer to the truth than was previously suspected thanks to a school history lesson.
Though you could tell the author wanted to tell so much more of the story, he kept it short enough for the teen attention span. It also kept my A.D.D. brain enthralled throughout. Bravo!
Though you could tell the author wanted to tell so much more of the story, he kept it short enough for the teen attention span. It also kept my A.D.D. brain enthralled throughout. Bravo!
April 24, 2024
In the year 2097, men constitute a minority, tightly regulated in a utopian society governed by women. Kellen, a 14-year-old boy, finds himself thrust into a battle to rescue his father from the aftermath of a virus outbreak that decimated ninety-seven percent of the male populace three decades prior. While the premise of this dystopian tale holds immense potential and the initial chapters are brimming with promise, completing the book proved to be a challenge.
dystopian
virus
nomen
2097
women rule
dystopian
virus
nomen
2097
women rule
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
March 25, 2019
This book has a lot of polarizing reviews, and I see the merits of each side. As a story, I thought it moved at a good pace and had generally believable characters. The ending was a little underwhelming, but I'm not sure that there could have been any other way out that would have been fully satisfying.
A good venture into the dystopian genre, yet one where there was some hope in the societal order (no wars? Sustainable living? Yes, please!).
A good venture into the dystopian genre, yet one where there was some hope in the societal order (no wars? Sustainable living? Yes, please!).
May 6, 2017
Post apocalyptic story of a world where 98% of the men were killed off in several days by a virus. Disturbing because of the romantic allure of the promise that it is a utopia. Touching because of the epitaphs that begin every chapter, providing tiny snapshots into love and loss. Not a feel good read.
August 13, 2019
Why did I wait so long to read this book? It’s been on my TBR list since 2012 and I loved this book. I’d read a few reviews on it saying it was like a weaker Handmaids Tale and I felt totally opposite. I thought this was way better. All the twist and turns. I do however wish at the end it had of told us what became of Kellen and Tia and what they’d just done. Overall though this book was awesome!
July 17, 2020
Found this on my shelves while Covid-19 cleaning. It's a quick read, Scholastic young adult. Probably would not have been as interesting if the world was not currently involved in a pandemic. Glad I found it and read it.
Will pass the book along to my kids :-)
Will pass the book along to my kids :-)
September 8, 2023
At first I wasn’t sure about this book and the premise, but it was told in a way that left me hungry for more. I also enjoyed the layout of each chapter with the epitaphs at the beginning, and it would have been helpful if they had continued putting the date each chapter.
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