This was another book read for genre-expanding.
The basics of the plot: There's this great sadness, almost like a disease, spreading over the world and causing people to commit suicide. A lot of people. Like 90% of the world. Of course, there are some survivors, and they make a pilgrimage of sorts.
The story clips along, and it's like reading a good zombie book or post-apocalypse story. What's nice and different is that the author doesn't make every person into a complete asshole, which is unusual for the genre. It's more realistic in that sense. It kind of sucks that one of the best books of all time, the Road, fits into this genre and all others will be compared to it. Because let's face it, that book is fantastic and pretty tough to match up with.
There were three essential things about the Suicide Collectors that bothered me:
1. There's a female character who is 11, but she seems awfully mature for 11. I guess that might happen if you saw people killing themselves all damn day, but why not just make her 14?
2. The ending is a little unsatisfying. However, there is an ending, so props for that. 3. This is kind of a personal pet peeve, but there are two fairly long dream sequences, or what you might call dream sequences. I just have no patience for that in fiction. It's a made up story, so what is the point of a mde-up story inside of a made-up story? Also, in literature, dreams almost always have some deeper significance, but it's sort of a cheat because that significance should come in the story, not within a dream within the story. It feels like taking a shortcut that I can't really abide by. Again, personal pet peeve, so if that stuff doesn't bother you, you'll be fine.
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