Songs for the End of the World

by Saleema Nawaz

"In these dark days, Saleema Nawaz dares to write of hope. Songs for the End of the World is a loving, vivid, tenderly felt novel about men, women, and a possible apocalypse. I couldn't put it down." –Sean Michaels, author of Us Conductors and The Wagers

NATIONAL BESTSELLER. An immersive, deeply engaging, and hopeful novel about the power of human connection in a time of crisis, as the bonds of love, family, and duty are tested by an impending catastrophe. Named a Book of the Year by the Globe and Mail, Quill & Quire , 49th Shelf, and a Book You Should Read by Maclean's and Chatelaine.

How quickly he'd forgotten a fundamental the closer you got to the heart of a calamity, the more resilience there was to be found.
     This is the story of a handful of people living through an unfolding catastrophe.
     Elliot is a first responder in New York, a man running from past failures and struggling to do the right thing. Emma is a pregnant singer preparing to headline a benefit concert for victims of a growing outbreak—all while questioning what kind of world her child is coming into. Owen is the author of a bestselling novel with eerie similarities to the real-life crisis, and as fact and fiction begin to blur, he must decide whether his lifelong instinct for self-preservation has been worth the cost.
     As we discover these characters' ties to one another—and to the mystery of the so-called ARAMIS Girl—what emerges is an extraordinary web of connection and community that reveals none of us is ever truly alone. 
     Brilliantly told by an unforgettable chorus of voices, Saleema Nawaz's glittering novel is a moving and hopeful meditation on what we owe to ourselves and to each other. It reminds us that disaster can bring out the best in people—and that coming together may be what saves us in the end.

Genres: Fiction, Science Fiction, Audiobook, Canada, Dystopia, Apocalyptic, Post Apocalyptic

428 pages, Paperback

First published April 14, 2020

About the author

Saleema Nawaz is the author of the short story collection Mother Superior and the novel Bone and Bread, which won the 2013 Quebec Writers’ Federation Paragraphe Hugh MacLennan Prize for Fiction. Her fiction has appeared in many Canadian literary journals, and her short story “My Three Girls,” won the 2008 Writers’ Trust of Canada/McClelland & Stewart Journey Prize.

Born and raised in Ottawa, Ontario, Saleema completed a Bachelor of Humanities at Carleton University and an M.A. in English Literature at the University of Manitoba, where her novella “The White Dress” was awarded the inaugural Robert Kroetsch Prize for Best Creative Thesis.

She currently lives and writes in Montreal, Quebec.

Reviews

[Anne Bogel · Rating 5 out of 5]

I think I'd give this book 4 stars were we not in the midst of our own pandemic, but I'm adding a star for the right-book-at-the-right-time factor.

How's this for meta? This novel, written between 2013 and 2019, is about a writer whose life is upended because the pandemic novel he wrote turns out be oddly prescient, seemingly predicting the coronavirus pandemic the country is currently beginning (with an epicenter of NYC).

Yeah.

If that premise freaks you out right now, I get it. And I urge you to skip this one. But if you're intrigued by the idea of reading about a cluster of characters whose lives overlap in interesting ways over a span of decades, and who all have to find their own way to cope in the midst of a pandemic, this is for you.

[Carolyn Walsh · Rating 3 out of 5]

This prophetic book was written about a coronavirus during the time frame of 2013 and 2019. It foretells the effects of a pandemic on a number of anxious, assorted people. Now in 2020, this is the world we are all presently living in. It focuses on a number of people with past or vague connections, or with those now living in uneasy, broken, or dysfunctional relationships.

There is no doubt that the author is a talented writer and researcher with great insight into her character's personalities. The scope and structure of the book were confusing and a distraction for me.
I regret I was unable to maintain interest in the various characters and their relationships and connections . I wanted to know more about the disease and the efforts of the government agencies to control it.

I believe an equally prophetic book 'The End of October' I previously read lessened the impact of 'Songs For the End of the World' for me. That book also featured a pandemic that started in Asia and soon spread worldwide. It featured an explanation of coronaviruses, historic pandemics, its mismanagement by government agencies, the search for an effective vaccine, and a strong and interesting lead character, and the devastation caused by the disease.

In this book, the number of characters and their reactions, without learning much of what was happening outside their individual lives, did not engage me. I regret did not hold my interest. With so many characters to keep straight, I failed to become interested or to like any of them. The search for the woman who was rumoured to be the cause of the Aramis infection starting in New York was unfortunate.

I wish to thank NetGalley and Penguin Random House Canada for the opportunity to read this book in return for an honest review. 2.5 stars rounded up to 3.
I do think that this could be a thought-provoking book that many readers will enjoy.

[Krista · Rating 3 out of 5]

Neela Sim, founder of the Dove Suite fansite, reported in a recent blog post that “Song for the End of the World” is frequently being played at memorials and funerals across the country. The post included photos sent in by ARAMIS survivors who were inspired to get tattoos featuring the song's lyrics. The band released a statement in response to the Trillis announcement. “Music has always been a way for people to come together, and that has never seemed more important than it does right now. If we've learned anything over the past year, it's that sometimes a voice in the darkness can reach out and save you from feeling alone.”

There are plenty of books and movies about disaster and survival, so it shouldn't really feel like too much of a coincidence that author Saleema Nawaz imagined and wrote about a novel coronavirus coming out of rural China in the year 2020. Having spent six years researching and writing about the progression of her fictional virus, Songs for the End of the World (although not exactly the same as COVID-19) certainly captures something of the times I find myself in right now – and that makes for a strange and weighty reading experience. It's hard for me to mentally separate this book from the times in which I read it (did I find it weightier because of its prescience?), and some of the narrative choices felt a bit too deliberate to me, so while I'd want to give it 3.5 stars if I could, I'm going to round down. Still enjoyed the weirdness of reading it right now.

Jejo's dead. So are Cam and Lucas and the master. Teresa, Declan, Felix, and Paloma are in the hospital. It's that bad flu that's on the news. Sorry for telling you like this but I can't talk now and it's better that you know.

In early summer of 2020, a novel coronavirus – soon to be officially named ARAMIS (Acute Respiratory and Muscular Inflammatory Syndrome) – is brought to NYC; likely carried unwittingly by a visiting Chinese kung fu master. The virus spreads quickly – those exposed can act as asymptomatic carriers for weeks – and anyone who thinks they may have been in contact with someone who gets sick is asked to voluntarily self-quarantine for twenty-one days. The streets quickly start to empty out – many start working from home, and those who do venture out for essentials don masks and gloves – but what makes ARAMIS so very frightening is that it proves particularly fatal for children. As ARAMIS spreads throughout America (the US is the hardest hit country; not much is said about other countries, although Canada is able to contain the virus to its west coast), the biggest question seems to be whether a person's ultimate duty is to oneself and one's immediate family (to gather – even hoard – supplies and isolate in some remote place) or to society at large (and find ways to help others, even at personal risk). Nawaz obviously put a lot of research into how such a virus arises and spreads, as well as the typical global and personal response to such threats, and the ARAMIS pandemic proceeds in an all too familiar trajectory. It's not the same as what's happening now – Nawaz doesn't have the entire world staying home to “plank the curve” – but it's close enough to have made me keep reading with avidity to see how she would resolve everything.

Our lives have a way of getting bound up with those of the people we've known. Like heavenly bodies caught in one another's orbit. Even once you go your separate ways, it's hard to get fully disentangled.

Ultimately, this is a novel, and Nawaz complicates the story of the progression of her virus with characters and their little lives. Jumping around in time, a large group of disparate characters are eventually shown to all be within a few degrees of separation from one another, and that is one of the threads that felt too novelistically deliberate to me. Also, many of the characters cross paths through the Philosophy department of a small liberal arts college in New England, and that made it too easy (to my way of thinking) for everyone to be having deep philosophical conversations in every timeline. Also, with a virus that disproportionately kills children, it felt too obvious to have so many couples (and singles) having babies, or fighting about having babies, or discussing the morality of bringing babies into a broken world before ARAMIS even arrives. But how convenient that an erstwhile sperm donor passed on a genetic resistance to ARAMIS to the forty-six children he never knew he fathered. I enjoyed the book overall, but not so much the development of the plot.

I particularly liked the irony of a novelist character seeing a surge in sales of his own prescient book about an emerging novel coronavirus, How to Avoid the Plague; how weird this extra layer must be for Nawaz (and she responds to that notion in a Q&A at the end of the book – it's dated from March, so I imagine it has become even weirder for her.) And even if Nawaz's world doesn't respond quite as drastically as ours has (people can still go to work and there are still funerals, flights, and cruise ships, etc.), she did imagine much of what has come to pass (including racist backlash against Asian-Americans). A few examples:

• Even the grocery aisle at the drugstore was picked over. He leaned down to inspect a lone instant ramen bowl on the bottom shelf while a woman in a purple raincoat edged over to move away from him.

• He wondered why he was surprised that churches would change with the times. He imagined the Holy Spirit flowing like a meme through the internet.

• She has an involuntary vision of a pandemic-ravaged planet and a new global culture that will have her doing a Skype call in Esperanto with someone in China.

Maybe Esperanto is a step too far, but wherever the fictional chimed with my actual experience, I felt a surge of recognition; and that makes for an engaging reading experience. I don't think it's a spoiler to say that this isn't a hopeless read – Nawaz imagines us all to be pretty decent at heart – and that has also chimed with my own experience here in the real world. I am glad to have had an opportunity to read Songs for the End of the World (thanks to NetGalley) while in self-isolation, and I hope that Nawaz finds success with this upon wide release.

[NILTON TEIXEIRA · Rating 3 out of 5]

I will be brief.
It was not what I expected.
The first 15% was very good and got me interest and I expected a huge scary drama like the movie “Contagion”.
What I got was stories of broken relationships.
Although the writing is not bad, I did not care for the storyline or the characters. Most of the time I was bored.
But I did enjoy the structure and the timeline (which spread between December 1999 and December 2020, but not in a chronological order).
I also appreciated the fact that this book was written last year, before the current pandemic started.
But I was untouched by all events. And I felt empty when I finished it. I did not feel any hope.

[Kammy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Thank you to the publisher for a copy of this book via netgalley!

So...reading this book was basically reading about how covid unfolded. The fact that the author did so much research into this book way before its time is amazing. Perhaps being smack in a middle of a pandemic, perhaps the additional creepy factor this book projects due to more real than fiction current reality, but I enjoyed it. Enjoyed reading how (fictional) humans act during a pandemic How it touches them differently, yet how we are all connected by it. Or more by the fear of it.

[Kab · Rating 2 out of 5]

Broadcasting the photo of a possible patient zero is alarming and hopefully agreed upon as unethical. Owen has professor-equivalent status and conducts himself grossly with students throughout; the sympathy he gets, which is expressed literally, makes him come across as an author stand-in. The women characters revolve around men or babies. The few who aren’t white are introduced by their race and breast size.

Dropping in the word capitalism and having a character tell us about elite panic doesn’t realise a vision of a world seized by a pandemic of a new scale. As a novel of an ensemble cast, the pre-pandemic character building is a considerable drag. The tagline talks about hope but its impression is more a timeline of stories of relationship entropy.

[Lata · Rating 4 out of 5]

It’s hard not to apply phrases like “true to life” and “prescient” to this pandemic story told through several PoVs and trips back and forth through time.

A police officer, Elliot, opens the book at the site of the one of the first known locations for several people to have contracted a new, mystery flu. The flu appears to target the respiratory system, as well as bring about disorientation and a high fever. Numerous people contract this rapidly worldwide, swiftly forcing international health officials to declare it to be a pandemic.
Saleema Nawaz shows how the characters in her book are associated, even though in some cases it’s only peripherally, but enough to show how people are connected to one another across North America, and how most of her characters keep unknowingly circling around each other, coming into contact with the infected in some cases.
At the same time, old arguments and resentments are sometimes forgotten, sometimes inflamed, while culture-wide and infrastructure problems are magnified with the rising fear, increased sick and dying, even while some refuse to abide by distancing and personal protective wear rules.

So, does any of this sound familiar? For anyone who hadn’t heard of COVID-19 or been affected by the sudden loss of loved ones because of the virus or loss of employment or peace of mind this book will no doubt seem like some well-researched speculative fiction. Instead, I found it interesting to see how Nawaz’s years of research compared with actual, worldwide responses to the COVID-19 pandemic, and there were certainly similarities, though in some cases day-to-day behavioural and power structure changes had progressed much faster in the book.
I liked that there was nothing flashy in the story: just relationships, both failed and otherwise, playing out with the fear and social restrictions. People choosing who to spend time with or to retreat from, maintaining connections through the internet, grieving, feeling at loose ends, wondering when normal returns, and all the other things we’re all doing now.
I think this would have been an easier read at some non-pandemic time, as the book has a constant, low-level sense of fear pervading it, but, thankfully, ends with the possibility of a way out of the situation.

[Tricia · Rating 4 out of 5]

This novel was a very interesting one to read in light of current events. The author’s research into past pandemics informed the novel, and created jarring parallels to what is happening in the world today.

I enjoyed how Saleema Nawaz wove the characters together, showing the many ways we are connected to one another.

[Erin Clemence · Rating 4 out of 5]

Special thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for a free, electronic ARC of this novel received in exchange for an honest review.

“Songs for the End of the World” by Saleema Nawaz, the award-winning author of “Bone & Bread”, is a story of a life-changing virus outbreak, and a small group of people who become intimately tied together in their journey to survive.

The author claims this story was started in 2013, and she used the Spanish flu and the Swine flu as her basis of research (who am I to argue with her?) but for a book that is published in August of 2020, it has a lot of eerie similarities to our current life as we know it. The virus being battled in the novel is entitled ARAMIS (Acute Respiratory and Muscular Inflammatory Syndrome) and it is all-inclusive, infecting everyone (including children) , leading to mass deaths. Forced by the WHO to wear masks, restrict travel, and quarantine for twenty-one days, no one on Earth is safe and everyone is at risk. Freaky, right?

The story is beautifully written; Nawaz has a way with descriptive language that is completely immersive and utterly powerful. The novel is written from the perspectives of many characters, across different time periods and at first, it felt a little discombobulated, as if the novel was instead a collection of short stories where there was some similarities between the tales but no connection. However, as I read on, the appeal of storytelling in this manner became apparent.

Each and every character in the novel is connected loosely to each other, which provokes a lot of deep questions about humanity as a whole. Nawaz has an interesting way of putting a “positive spin” on a society-altering virus (if a positive spin can be put on at all!) , encouraging tough thoughts and allowing her readers to take a second look at their lives, their loved ones, and what really matters.

I didn’t really get into this novel until about halfway through, as mentioned, and the parallels with society as it is now was completely terrifying for me (I had a very hard time hearing about a novel “coronavirus” infiltrating the planet and trying to read it as fiction- oh, what a world we live in!) but “Songs for the End of the World” definitely deserves all of the praise and attention it has been getting.

[Amie's Book Reviews · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was surprised to learn that the writing of this book took place before the Covid19 Pandemic. In fact, this book was begun six years ago.

SONGS FOR THE END OF THE WORLD centers around a coronavirus disease called ARAMIS which is eerily similar to COVID19. There are other things in this story that are extremely similar to what is happening in the world today.

In fact, one of the main characters is an author who had written  fictional account of a plague similar to ARAMIS. Little did Saleema Nawaz know that she was going to experience firsthand what her character went through.

The main difference between this book and other sci-fi / post apocalyptic /dystopian / speculative fiction novels is the outlook of the characters. What I mean by this is that in most of the books of this genre, the actions of the populace devolve into violence over the course of the story. In fact, in most post-apocalyptic books, the plague ends up being less dangerous than  the people.

In SONGS FOR THE END OF THE WORLD, the majority of the characters act for the good of society rather than simply taking care of themselves and their families. Of course, they do not take reckless risks, but they are somehow able to hang onto their humanity. This is a refreshingly optimistic view of how people act during a catastrophe.

Although I said this book is optimistic, don't think that every character is perfect; they are far from it. There are also characters that act like self righteous jerks, as well as a few characters you will want to smack upside of their head for how they behave. In short, just as in real life, there are good people, bad people, and people who fall somewhere in the middle.

I recommend this book to anyone who is looking for a unique science fiction novel with characters that are so relatable that you will feel like they are friends of yours by the end of the book.

I rate SONGS FOR THE END OF THE WORLD as 4 OUT OF 5 STARS ⭐⭐⭐⭐


*** Thank you to NetGalley for providing me with a free copy of this book. ***

[Caroline Lafrance · Rating 4 out of 5]

Reading a book about a pandemic while in pandemic. Why do I do this to myself?!
Overall very good book.

[Tracy · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was excellent. I think I would have always given this five stars, I usually do when a book deeply moves me emotionally. I could give this six, as it was published in a year during which we have grappled with our own pandemic, and so much loss of life, so much grief and loss. The novel looks at the lives of twenty-odd people and how their lives have intertwined over the years from 1999 to 2020. In August of 2020 a novel coronavirus begins to spread in New York City. Ground zero is a popular Italian restaurant and it is believed that one of the waitresses (called ARAMIS girl by the media) was patient zero. Over the next five months the virus spreads, the authorities search for the girl but never find her. As it turns out patient zero was someone else entirely, an older man visiting from China. ARAMIS girl is Chinese as well, there is a backlash against Asian immigrants and visitors much as there was in North America during COVID. While a great deal of the novel is similar, there are differences. Social distancing is only three feet instead of six, ARAMIS seems to be a bit less contagious and a lot more lethal. There is masking, but people are still travelling, cruises are still a thing (!?). The fear is greater in some ways as ARAMIS affects children a great deal more than COVID seems to. The quarantine period is three weeks instead of two. But these are minor details really. The core of the book is the relationships between the characters, what do we all owe society and what does society owe us. How do we help one another, how do we deal with our collective grief?

[Ellen Margolese · Rating 5 out of 5]

It is hard to separate this novel out from the context in which it is released but I think it would be a compelling read in any time.

The author wrote this book over a number of years, spending time researching previous pandemics, epidemiology and related to topics. She finished it prior to the current pandemic, however, it is eerily similar to what is playing out currently.

As people may have read, its release was scheduled for August of this year but given current circumstances a decision was made to release the e- book early. The paperback will still be released in August.

This is a complex novel, following a number of inter-related characters over many years, some prior to the outbreak of the pandemic and others starting in a more present time frame. At one point, I started to make a sketch of how the characters into related. Because I was reading an e-book, it was not easy to flip back and double check who is who. By the time I was about a 3rd through, I had sorted everybody out in my mind.

Although it is situated in the midst of a pandemic, the themes of this novel are really around connection, interdependence and what is important in life.

[Amy · Rating 3 out of 5]

The story starts off strong and pulled me in, but waned by the halfway point. It is a decent story on the human toll of living in a pandemic but the multiple character viewpoints water down the expansion of each character.

[Andrea McDowell · Rating 4 out of 5]

Bought this early in the pandemic and then absolutely could not bring myself to read it. Two and a half years on, I finally could, and it was worth it, though I was less impressed with the pandemic parallels than I remember reviewers being at the time.

I do like the characters, writing and overall story; I appreciate that this is a pandemic story with a more realistic death toll, rather than the genre's preoccupation with diseases that kill 90% plus of the population (which has never happened, even with the plague). Many of the human elements were reasonably well done and there were touches (N-95 masks, physical distancing, etc.) that were nicely done.

But the author has governments doing much less than they actually did in similar circumstances: schools, shops, etc., are never closed; there are never curfews; masks are suggestions only; it takes months for churches to move online; government remains focused on not scaring people too much and keeping the economy open, and as we now know, even in very conservative states where the pandemic was not taken as seriously as it ought to have been, this didn't happen. Here in Ontario public schools were closed for years and many sectors of the economy were restricted for a very long time, with strong support by the population. A big relief concert would never have been allowed. Attendance at funerals was limited -- this never happened in the novel.

So, ironically, Nawaz got a lot of the pandemic right, except for the people. And that's kind of the point and the heart of fiction. So this was a 3.5 rounded up for me.

It's interesting to read pandemic novels now that were written beforehand, and compare the author's preoccupations and biases with what we have since learned. Overall I think authors (and possibly the population as a whole) underestimate other people and decision-makers in particular.

[Aneta Bak · Rating 3 out of 5]

Songs for the End of the World is a novel about multiple different characters with connections each other in one way or another, and how they deal with a coronavirus pandemic. This book was written from 2013 to 2019, before the current worldwide pandemic.

I will keep this review short. This book definitely had its perks but it was not what I expected at all.

The author of this book is a great write and an amazing researcher. Speaking as a microbiologist, I was very impressed with the level of detail the author included about the pandemic, the science and medical side of things and just knowing how real people would react to the pandemic, because what she wrote is very close to what actually happened in real life.
Unfortunately the structure of the book and the characters were not something I enjoyed. As the story follows multiple characters, we constantly switch from one character to another and new characters are constantly introduced into the story. Normally I don't mind books like this where they focus on a few characters, but this novel had a crazy amount of characters, ones that were still being introduced into the story more than half way through the book. I know at one point while reading I actually said to myself "oh my god another new character? When will it end?"
I also found myself a bit confused sometimes on who each character was and their connections to one another, I'm not sure if it was just me but I could not connect to any of the characters. They felt a bit one dimensional and boring.

Overall, I loved the idea of this story and how much work the author put into the research and her effort. Unfortunately I need a story where I can connect with at least one character to be interested in reading.

[TraceyL · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's hard to describe this book. It's not really an apocalyptic or dystopian story like I thought it would be. The story follows several characters who are all loosely connected to one another. Most of the book is just describing the characters living their lives in the past before a pandemic began.

The writing was very good and I was immersed in the story, but nothing really happened. I think the author was going for some kind of commentary on human connection and bonding in a crises, but I didn't actually walk away with any message. I read 2/3 in one go, and then took a break for a couple of days before finishing it, and I had already forgotten most of what I had read.

The author is from Ottawa and so am I, so it was fun that she named a fictional town and university Landsdowne after an Ottawa landmark.

[Allegra · Rating 5 out of 5]

I adore Saleema for her support and participation is Bare it for Books back in the day, and Bone and Bread is one of my all time favourite books. So thrilled to read this on so many levels! Cannot believe she wrote a book a) about a pandemic that came out during a pandemic but b) that one of the characters was a novelist who WROTE A BOOK ABOUT A PANDEMIC BEFORE THE PANDEMIC HAPPENED. Loved this.

[Faye · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a novel about a coronavirus pandemic in 2020. But it was written between 2013-2019. And one of the characters is an author who wrote a pandemic-predicting novel. I mean... *brain-splosion gesture*

Reading this book, I got the sense that it was meant to be written when it was, released when it was, and read when it was. This isn't a thriller or a scifi race-to-a-cure kind of novel, this is an introspective look at human relationships which just happens to be set during a pandemic. Right now, that is an extremely relatable and sorely needed perspective. It feels like reading about real life, but in a gentle, empathic way that we see way too little of these days. Coupled with the perfect flow of Nawaz's prose and dialogue, I found this reading experience downright soothing.

I highly recommend this book. I know it's tough to read pandemic books right now, but I promise, this one will fill you with hope rather than dread. There's still light and love in this world, and, even when we may think we're alone, we're all connected in ways we just can't see yet. I really enjoyed it.

[Amber · Rating 5 out of 5]

Finished on Saturday morning. First book I finished in 2022. I really enjoyed it. Nawaz clearly put a lot of work into this and it shows. I enjoyed the vignettes and the settings across the years. The timelines and material at the front of the book were helpful. Reminded me a lot of Galore by Michael Crummey.

[Alexis · Rating 5 out of 5]

I thought this book was immensely powerful, and it's one I will be thinking about for a long time.

It was researched and written between 2013 and 2019, and it tells the story of a fictional pandemic, and a group of characters living through this pandemic. This is a story filled with humanity and hope.

The author uses a really interesting structure, with multiple points of view and timelines to tell the story.

This is a masterful work.

[Mary Soderstrom · Rating 4 out of 5]

Saleema Nawaz Webster is amazing. Her first novel Bone & Bread told of a touching complicity between sisters who are left to fend for themselves in their early teens. At the centre of the book is the relationb between one of the sisters and her son, born before she graduated from highschool. The story is well told, the issues are well presented, and, amazingly, ring very true.

I say amazingly because at the time Nawaz-Webster wrote the book she had never had a sister and nor a a child. She was able to summon up the experience wihtout a false note, the reader has no doubt about the authenticity of the drama--until he or she realizes that the author is conjuring it up...

Something of the same sort happens in Song for the End of the World. The book was published in March 2020, just as the world became aware of the Covid-19 pandemic. But Nawaz-Webster tells a story that--nine months into this pandemic--rings true in almost all details. Obviously she did her research and then allowed her imagination to take her handful of characters and make them confront one of the worst disasters in the 100 years. The result is a gripping story, which the reader who's gone through lock-down, shelter in place, and the rise of pandemic deniers, can only read and nod in agreement.

Oh, she gets some things wrong. There's no mention of the 2020 presidential election, no pandemic denial, nothing about a race to get a vaccine, but the novel is a tour de force. Definitely worth reading, even if you're sick of (as opposed to "from") Covid-19.

[Magdelanye · Rating 4 out of 5]

Chillingly presient as it was, reading this in 2020 I was flabbergasted as to how to write a review. I planned to get hold of it again but other books happened; I have not.

Three years is a long time to languish on my currently reading list, and my ambivalence has tilted in memory in the books favour. I loved it less as I went along, but don't let that stop you. This is a book worth reading and I do still want to read it again.

[Katie Sikkes · Rating 3 out of 5]

2.5 stars. Lost a half star by making tattoos out to be such a big deal.

[Carson Samson · Rating 2 out of 5]

I’m not sure I liked this book very much.

[Roxanne Meek · Rating 5 out of 5]

“Pandemics are a time of great upheaval and uncertainty, and we often turn to stories for guidance when the world frightens us” ~ Saleema Nawaz

Reading a book about a novel corona virus pandemic, during an actual novel corona virus pandemic, was more than a little uncomfortable at times, but the overall message of this story reminds us that disaster can bring out the best in people, and that working together may be what saves us in the end.

A story that weaves past and present day, and a handful of characters whose lives intersect in a web of connection. Strangely, this book was written between 2013-2019, pre-COVID-19 and the historical year that was 2020.

[Denise · Rating 2 out of 5]

I found this book to be generally well written, but I did not enjoy it. Soooo many characters to follow and keep track of. The constantly changing point of view and non-linear timeline was dizzying and I found it distracted from the story rather than adding to it. It also doesn’t seem to really end; it felt to me more like the author just stopped writing in the middle of the action rather than at a logical point in the storyline.

[BookstagramETC · Rating 4 out of 5]

[21] How very meta! This book was written between 2013 and 2019, and features an author whose pandemic novel turns out be oddly prescient as it seems to predict the coronavirus pandemic the country is currently beginning which has its epicenter in NYC. Truth stranger than fiction and all that. It was really a story of relationships and life choices told from the perspectives of half a dozen different people in an interconnected web and across a span of years going back to 1999 or up to the present in 2020. I was a big fan of the flow chart of characters at the beginning of this book and of the mapping out of which characters would be revisited and in what timeline - allowed me to move more easily through the disparate narrators knowing that we'd only get the one chapter from Edith's POV (though she was featured in several other characters' chapters) but would return to Elliot or Sarah again and again. Helped me understand how the character fit into the broader story and look for ways their experiences intersected with others. The author really did her homework - her representation of the pandemic is shockingly spot-on for how things went in our own 2020, which was definitely part of the draw for me with this story.

book "He knows that happiness is not a state of being. It is a knack. It is like hitting a baseball or skating backwards; there are certain tricks to it that some people can never master." [137]

book "She had come to realize that a gesture, like a phrase, like a song, could mean different things to different people. What mattered was the exchange itself: the link, however tenuous, stretching out between one soul and another." [341]

book "How quickly he'd forgotten a fundamental truth: the closer you got to the heart of a calamity, the more resilience there was to be found." [410]

#SongsForTheEndOfTheWorld #SaleemaNawaz #BookReview #Bookstagram #WhatShouldIReadNext #PandemicFiction #FictionOf2020

Quotes:
"It is what all of his books have been about, and why Owen suspects women enjoy them - they love that a man can recognize just how terrible he really is and express it on paper. It is a common human mistake: misinterpreting words for action. It is a mistake he often makes himself." [119]

He hopes Rachel is happy now. Of the two of them, she was always better at being happy, though he had perhaps benefitted from lower expectations. He knows that happiness is not a state of being. It is a knack. It is like hitting a baseball or skating backwards; there are certain tricks to it that some people can never master. A Buddhist he had sex with once told him that "desire is suffering," but Owen has considered it and is sure she was wrong. Desire is electric. It is what keeps him alive. [137]

234 - Ethical considerations re: pandemic and censorship and personal liberty - talks about sociological concept of "elite panic"

"She had come to realize that a gesture, like a phrase, like a song, could mean different things to different people. What mattered was the exchange itself: the link, however tenuous, stretching out between one soul and another." [341]

"How quickly he'd forgotten a fundamental truth: the closer you got to the heart of a calamity, the more resilience there was to be found." [410]

Source: Anne Bogel who wrote, "How's this for meta? This novel, written between 2013 and 2019, is about a writer whose life is upended because the pandemic novel he wrote turns out be oddly prescient, seemingly predicting the coronavirus pandemic the country is currently beginning (with an epicenter of NYC).

Yeah."

Bought the book for myself in Birmingham, Alabama at The Little Professor bookshop.

[M T · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thanks to Netgalley and Penguin random house Canada for my copy. 3.5*

Ok so maybe the wrong time to read a book about a global pandemic maybe! It is hard to believe this was written over a 6 year period before Covid 19.

Although I enjoyed the narrative and the author's style of writing I found the rather large ensemble cast of characters to be confusing. When I have to keep turning back pages to marry the characters together it spoils my enjoyment.

Although the book centres around a pandemic the story is really of human relationships and the connections we have to one another.

[Jane Spiteri · Rating 5 out of 5]

Another win for Dominion City Beer and Book Club! Such a great book. Amazing how Nawaz foresaw pandemic life (although this fictional pandemic was worse than ours). And the story within a story, of the author who publishes a novel about the pandemic before it happens: life imitating art, art imitating life. Beautifully written, with a cast of interconnected characters, most of them not knowing their interconnectedness.