Review : California by Edan Lepucki

Posted by on February 27, 2015 12:19 am in 3 stars reads | 1 comment

californiaCalifornia by Edan Lepucki
Pages : 393
Genre : Speculative Fiction
Stand alone
My Rating : 3/5

About the Book  :

The world Cal and Frida have always known is gone, and they’ve left the crumbling city of Los Angeles far behind them. They now live in a shack in the wilderness, working side-by-side to make their days tolerable despite the isolation and hardships they face. Consumed by fear of the future and mourning for a past they can’t reclaim, they seek comfort and solace in one other. But the tentative existence they’ve built for themselves is thrown into doubt when Frida finds out she’s pregnant.

Terrified of the unknown but unsure of their ability to raise a child alone, Cal and Frida set out for the nearest settlement, a guarded and paranoid community with dark secrets. These people can offer them security, but Cal and Frida soon realize this community poses its own dangers. In this unfamiliar world, where everything and everyone can be perceived as a threat, the couple must quickly decide whom to trust.

My Thoughts :

I was going through abandoned drafts  from last fall when I stumbled upon California’s half-done review. Interestingly, even though the book failed to amaze me, parts of it had been on my mind lately.

For me, the book started well. It’s incredibly slow-moving and internal – which I liked, especially in contrast to the trend of action-packed dystopias YA fiction has given us over the years. I was enjoying getting a more intimate view of things. The gloomy atmosphere was heavy through the page, and I thought that was well done.

And even though both characters annoyed me immensely, I was interested to see where this was going, as much as I was interested by what they had gone through in the past. How did the world go wrong? What happened with Frida’s brother? Who were the mysterious neighbours, and what happened to them?

But then, the characters move from their original setting to a new one, and that’s where it started to go wrong for me. I wasn’t interested in the new characters or the world they built, and the twists felt predictable to me. I kept reading, hoping to be surprised, but in the end, it was just okay. Frida and Cal’s flaws, which I didn’t mind when by themselves, only annoyed me more when confronted to a bigger world.

(I honestly can’t decide who I liked less, Cal or Frida. Huh!)

So while California definitely left an impression with its dark, gloomy and realistic atmosphere, the overall result failed to really impress me. Luckily for me, there’s plenty more dystopian fiction waiting around to be read!

1 Comment

  1. BermudaOnion(Kathy) February 27, 2015 at 9:43 am

    Slow moving probably wouldn’t work for me these days.

    Reply

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