And I didn’t think it was pointlessly nihilistic or cynical either. I think the ending negates that interpretation of the book.

I loved it. A lot. That probably has a lot to do with my intense fondness for post-apocalyptic stories, of which I’ve read a lot (and watched a lot). But this one was the first I’ve read to bring up the horrible notion about what
people really would have to do if all animal and plant life was gone for good. Holy crap! I mean, forget any literary pretensions the book may have, that’s some pretty good horror stuff right there.

So maybe that’s why I liked it so much. Not because it was brilliantly written, or incredibly deep (although at heart I kind of think it is) but because it told a really good, creepy, horrific story.

Also, I don’t think any other book I’ve ever read has made me cry because a character in it found a can of peaches. So there’s that.

While it’s pretty apparent what the style is doing as a device, it’s still annoyingly self-conscious in places, and you wish he’d just get over his aversion to punctuation already.

But every comment I’ve ever read about the book points out how depressing it is, and I didn’t think it was ultimately depressing. That’s probably just because I entirely disagree with the pointless nihilism and cynicism of most of the book, and I never felt like any of it was real.

I do like apocalyptic novels because I think they are so extreme as to be essentially parables. And I really like parables. But man, you know, I need to stop reading all this depressing stuff too.