This World and the Next

by Dave Essinger

After a dysfunctional government gives way to rioting and blackouts, teenage Rosa Calder’s group takes shelter deep beneath an Ohio airbase, and when they finally emerge, nothing works and everyone is gone. Elsewhere, her father has disappeared on a classified mission, a nihilistic biochemical researcher roams the countryside incinerating the victims of a weaponized psychedelic neurotoxin, and gritty runaway Julia discovers a grisly antidote to the epidemic, as messianic survivors work to end humanity on the Earth. Rosa and her snarky BFF Hannah, along with her obnoxious little brother and some idiot jocks from the football team, are left to rebuild society and find out what went wrong in a coming-of-age story for the end of the world.

395 pages, Kindle Edition

Published November 13, 2024

Reviews

[Claudia Putnam · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was an extremely enjoyable read while also leaving much to ponder. I really look forward to my reading time at the end of the day because I knew I was coming to this book and I was sorry when it was over. I also wanted to see what was next after the ending. Guessing the story goes on. I don’t think it’s really a question of the survival of the human race after this, at least not with the information we currently have because the gene pool is simply way too small. Overall a fascinating meditation on personal responsibility, that is the concept of pure research or pure science as divorced from its political context. Like how will this be used really? It’s really the same thing that we think about when we study Los Alamos and many other events in history that were horrible and driven by human curiosity that is not constrained by ethics or context in this case it’s our current chaotic environment and what you might be able to do to make a population not resist. There are a lot of before and after points of view, and I thought it might’ve been interesting to be inside the head of somebody who would not be considered a survivor, but might still be living. Because I wound up with this question: does survival become about suppressing species change? Or is it about accepting that change? I think the novel is meant to raise this sort of question. But we only have one POV that is sort of about how it feels to be changed. And that guy was a nut to begin with. So even though there are many things to think about about the experience of the changed, there wasn’t quite enough of a means of comparison. Just enough there to be intriguing. Beautifully written and definitely a high concept novel that is exactly what spec lit should be.

[Tiffany Vincent · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you grew up in the 80s, absorbing Red Dawn, H.M. Hoover novels, Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome, Night of the Comet, and every post-apocalyptic "the-world-gets-what-it-deserves" story you could find, you’re going to love this novel. It captures all those elements we craved as kids but elevates them with the intelligence and emotional depth we seek as adults.

Yes, the protagonist is a child, and she thinks and behaves like one. However, the book feels distinctly mature, avoiding the heavy-handed moralizing often seen in young adult fiction of this genre. The kids are portrayed as slightly feral—more adult than their actual adults—and it works beautifully. My 12-year-old self would already be at the library, eagerly awaiting the sequel.

[Ted · Rating 2 out of 5]

I thought the book had a slow beginning, then became more interesting as the story moved along, but the ending was indeterminate, leaving many things unresolved. If it is meant to be the first in a series, I won't read another.