Happy Doomsday

Evidencing a firm grasp on the slightly absurd, a keen eye for minutiae, and an overfondness for manufactured coincidence, Sosnowski (Vamped) delivers an uneven chronicle of coming of age at the end of the world. Lucy, Marcus, and Dev are three 16-year-olds who all find themselves on the wrong side of the apocalypse. Each is in the midst of a personal crisis—Lucy is unexpectedly pregnant, autistic Dev is in a “perpetual state of PTSD” and “diagnostically shy,” and Marcus is a radicalized Muslim teen planning to blow up his school—when every human around them drops dead. As expected, each handles the situation very differently. As the trio find one another in what has become a vast wasteland of death, they’re repeatedly forced—separately and together—to face exactly what they lost. The narrative is immersive and the points of view are distinct, but both are lost among graphic depictions of decomposing corpses. The tight focus on suicide and death, coupled with abundant character stereotypes, will make it hard for most readers to get any enjoyment out of this novel. Agent: Jane Dystel, Dystel, Goderich & Bourret. (Sept.)