We're right in the thick of things now. I'm feeling much better these days, after about a month of reading too much about the novel coronavirus, and worrying about what's to come, I'm finally settled in to this new "normal." Strangely enough, I chose two books earlier in the year that have a plot around or based on a pandemic. The first was a Nora Roberts book called Year One that I bought for $1.99 on Apple Books, and the second was an Audible pick called The Murmur of Bees, by Sofia Sargovia. The first book was entertaining and held my interest, and the second is fabulous, and really quite lovely and lyrical as it follows a Mexican Family through Spanish Flu times. I'm not finished listening to it, because I have been saving it for my 'Rona Walks in the Woods.
The third pandemic book of the year was chosen purposefully for my Book Club, and certainly qualifies as dystopian fiction. The book weaves in and out of time both before and after a world altering pandemic where most of humanity is wiped out by a severely contagious and deadly flu virus. The author shows her creativity by imagining what happens when there are no people to make life function in the way we've become accustomed. While imagining this world, she cleverly brings the lives of her main characters together in a hopeful ending. I'm not sure if now is the best time to read Station Eleven, but I enjoyed it thoroughly nonetheless.
Personally, I spent some time grieving all of the lost things due to the pandemic. I would have hoped that surviving tumultuous times would make subsequent trauma easier to deal with, but I don't think that's the case. I don't find the quote, What doesn't kill you makes your stronger, to be accurate at all. In fact, I hate that quote, along with Everything happens for a reason. I call bullshit on both of them.
