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The acclaimed post-apocalyptic novel by one of the literary world’s brightest young (or youngish) stars. A plague has wiped out most of humanity, and a few survivors are striving to keep the “human” in “humankind” by preserving the old culture. The time-bending narrative is complex and at times brilliant, and the drama is low key. This is a thinking man’s apocalypse. The characters are deep and the themes are ambitious, but the book as a whole is too sterile to speak to readers with a less-optimistic take on the core nature of human beings. Reviewed on July 17, 2020