A Desolate Splendor

This is a beautiful book, but I found the description incredibly misleading. Yes, this is a post-apocalyptic novel about survival in the aftermath of disaster. But the end of the world event is basically set dressing: there are many clues that this is the future but there is almost no information ab......more

I am on my third read now. I can’t quite put into words… I’m not quite certain how the author did this. There is a moment, in fact, (the Native brothers attacking the encampment, I think), where I came to realize Jantunen had managed to transcend just about any fiction I’ve read in the past 20 years......more

An interesting if somewhat disturbing depiction of a post-apocalyptic world. The books is mixture of "Oryx and Crake" and "Swan's Song' peppered with terminology resembling Riddley Walker. If you are familiar with these novels and enjoyed them you will most likely enjoy "A Desolate Splendor". As not......more

The description for this book is very misleading - so misleading in fact, that I was completely lost for the first half of the book. The writing is beautiful and at times utterly disturbing, but I was confused most of the time waiting for the story to have some resemblance to the description. If the......more

I was given this book to read by my sister-in-law, who helped edit it. Reading the synopsis on the back of the book, I thought for sure I would fly through this one. It sounded so exciting and right up my alley. Instead, I struggled with this book. After reading the first section, I thought it would......more