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Book Review of Swan Song

Swan Song
stargazingbookworm avatar reviewed on + 29 more book reviews


A very, first, disturbing, horrific journey and then enlightening book.
A story that takes you from the personal horrors of the individual characters to the more horrific horrors of a world changed forever. Their personal horrors plague them as they try to figure what to do and how to survive the global nuclear winter that comes after everything they knew is gone.
This book pulls no punches in the awful conflict that occurs or how individuals choose to deal with the aftermath. There are those that do awful, horrific, unimaginable things that most of us couldn't ever think of, to those that are just trying to survive and try to help each other in the smallest of ways. The descriptions bring pictures to your mind that you don't want to see but are needed to propel the story forward. You don't want to believe that these things would ever happen but in the back of your mind you know would happen...many are graphic and in many places the characters themselves voice how awful it all is.
A very difficult read but in the end it becomes hopeful and you understand the journey through the book. In the end there is a rather surprising way that may or may not seem possible but it lends to the conclusion in the way the author saw it, which gives the reader a different view point.
I almost put this book down a few times while reading it because the material was so difficult and disturbing to read. I'm glad I read it all the way through now because it was a very good story. As for all the disturbing parts, which is most of the book, its what nuclear war would be most likely and sadly the way survival after the war would be, as hard as it is to say that. If it weren't for the awful we would forget to not push the buttons and have to remind others that what would come after doesn't mean it would be better than what we have now.