#12 [2026/CBR18] One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This by Omar El Akkad

I found One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This [One Day] (2025) by Omar El Akkad because I was seeing it all over the place. It won the National Book Award and was on a number of high-profile lists. I've been interested in learning more about Palestine for some time, especially after the October 7, 2023 attack on Israel by Hamas, and the subsequent violence from Israel against Palestinians. I found this book very well written and eye opening.

Omar El Akkad was born in Cairo, Egypt. When his father got a job in Doha, Qatar, Omar moved with his family to Qatar, growing up in that country. Later, he moved to Canada where he became a journalist. Now he lives near Portland with his wife and daughter. It seems that El Akkad wrote One Day because it was killing him to see all of the death, destruction, and suffering of Palestine and its people. At the same time, the United States is blithely supporting Israel, only murmuring the occasional platitude when confronted. The hypocrisy is strong with both American political parties. El Akkad points out numerous times how Americans are constantly trumpeting buzzwords like "freedom and morality" but as soon as it is in America's (or its leader's) interest, any high ideals that we pretend to espouse are thrown out the window--especially when it's something happening far away and involves "others".

    "One of the hallmarks of Western liberalism is an assumption, in hindsight, of virtuous resistance as the only polite expectation of people on the receiving end of colonialism. While the terrible thing is happening--while the land is still being stolen and the natives still being killed--any form of opposition is terroristic and must be crushed for the sake of civilization. But decades, centuries later, when enough of the land has been stolen and enough of the natives killed, it is safe enough to venerate resistance in hindsight." (18)

One thing that El Akkad talked about that hit me deeply was the way in which western reporters cover the war in Palestine, and the language they use. When Israel is the attacker, it's passive voice and a clinical presentation. A Palestinian girl was unfortunately hit by a bullet during the conflict. But when the violence is from the Palestinian side, it is described as "terrorists" and intentional violence. Just listening to the news, it's difficult to get an idea of the scope of the intentional killing and destruction that Palestine was enduring.

I am moderately informed and occasionally read the news, but I was getting a better feel of what was going on in Palestine from Instagram reels--although these were very hard to watch. What was frustrating, though, is that I did not necessarily trust the Reels because I didn't know where they came from or how reliable they were. Yet when I looked up specific things I'd seen on Instagram that were especially egregious, they were all turning out to be true. 

It was Instagram Reels, famous advocates like Greta Thunberg raising awareness, and even the International Criminal Court putting an arrest warrant out for Netanyahu that made me more aware of how immoral the United States (by supporting Israel) was acting. In December 2024, the Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International accused Israel of genocide. It's not the side of history I wanted to be on.

Another thing that El Akkad discussed in One Day that really changed my thinking is how the United States frames its actions. Any violence perpetrated against us is terrorism by madmen who are intent on destroying our way of life. But any violence perpetrated by the United States is a "justified and measured response with unfortunate collateral." No matter how you phrase it, though, blowing up someone's home or killing someone's child is still blowing up someone's home or killing someone's child. The damage is the same. Just because the United States is powerful enough to call their violence "legal" doesn't make it any better.

I was still reading this book when Trump and Hegseth started their war against Iran. I still don't understand why they started it, what they hope to achieve, or what they think is going to happen in the long run, but it deeply underscores El Akkad's point. The United States just blew up a school that killed over 150 children. They can say they didn't mean to and they'll look into it, but the damage has been done. Let's explain to the parents of those children that we're not the terrorists.

I still am very ignorant about both the history and current situation in Palestine. (Although One Day was very moving, it is not a history book). [I am looking for a well-researched, concise, and accurate history of Palestine and Israel if anyone has suggestions.] Perhaps I am too idealistic, but I don't want to choose any sides here. I want the killing and inhumanity to stop, so I am against anyone not treating others as people. That means the war crimes Israel has perpetrated, the occupation of Palestine, the violence by Hamas on October 7th, the settlers pushing people out of their homes, and the United States attacking Iraq and Iran for lies and distraction and causing irreparable harm.

Highly recommended.

#41 [2023/CBR15] Engineering Eden by Jordan Fisher Smith

I found Engineering Eden: The True Story of a Violent Death, a Trial, and the Fight Over Controlling Nature (2016) by Jordan Fisher Smith when I was looking for a book to fulfill the "in the wild" square for my bingo card. It's not a book I had heard of before, but it seemed exactly the kind of book I would have an interest in and enjoy reading.

Harry Walker was twenty-five years old and living on his family farm in Choccolocco, Alabama when he took off with a friend. His adventure ended in tragedy when he was killed by a grizzly bear in Yellowstone National Park in 1972. Walker's family ended up suing the National Park Service for the death of their son, culminating in a trial in Southern California. Smith uses this court case to shed light on the history and management of the National Parks. Specifically, Smith points out how national parks were never wilderness Eden's, but were highly manipulated attractions. These manipulations were often ignorantly pursued, causing incredible damage to the parks and their animals--especially with hindsight.

Like I mentioned above, this book is right up my alley. First, I love national parks and I love backpacking, so the places Smith describes are near and dear to my heart. (I actually went backpacking in Wyoming right after I first got a hold of this book, but I decided to wait to read it until I was not backpacking alone in grizzly country. This turned out to be a very wise choice because there are some gruesome grizzly attacks that would have scared the crap out of me alone in the woods.) Second, I was a lawyer who specifically focused on public lands and public lands management in school. In addition, I was excited to read that the plaintiff's attorney in Walker's case attended Pomona College, my alma mater (It's a pretty small school, so this doesn't happen too often.)

I did enjoy this book, and I learned a lot. However, I wish it had been a little more focused. There's a lot of information in here, with plenty of detail. But there are so many people, and Smith jumps around so much from park to park that it's sometimes difficult to follow or know what to focus on. Besides the trial and some history, Smith narrows in on three controversial management practices in the parks. One was dealing with the overpopulation of elk after most of the predators had been exterminated. In the 1960's the elk were being shot to control their numbers, but a new director decided that the habitat would limit elk numbers (it didn't). The second was dealing with fires. The park service went from suppressing every fire before realizing there was a detrimental effect on the ecology. 

Finally, the third was management of bears. Back in the 50's and 60's, people were feeding bears by hand and using dumps overrun with bears as tourist traps. It's something you wouldn't even imagine now, and it led to many negative interactions between bears and humans. Things may have gotten even worse when they shut down the trash dumps around 1970 in Yellowstone and hungry bears wandered into campsites where food was still plentiful and easy to get. This was the situation that Larry Walker wandered into in 1972.

Smith shows how two thought systems were fighting for dominance when it came to park management. Some wanted as little human intervention as possible while others thought human intervention necessary and helpful. The Craigshead brothers were on the latter side. They were wildlife biologists who were researching grizzly bears in Yellowstone for decades in the 1950's and 1960's. They vehemently disagreed with the Yellowstone director about the best way to cut out dumpster diving bears. They believed it should be done slowly, with perhaps carrion dropped off far away from people, in closed areas of the park, to keep hungry bears away from people. Ultimately, they were probably right, but I didn't agree with their philosophy. These brothers were carting birds of prey chicks from their nests as pets and collaring every grizzly and elk they could get their hands on. I know they gleaned a ton of information from all this, but I am personally a fan of research that minimizes intrusions on the animals. In addition, I felt the majority of the problem stemmed from the feeding of bears for decades. There was always going to be some repercussions when that was stopped.

The way Harry Walker's case was used as a lynchpin and slowly drawn out throughout the book, I was expecting some big revelations about his death. And although it was a tragedy for him and his family, he did camp illegally in the park and left food all over the campsite. It's very likely closing the dumps contributed to Walker's death, but he also contributed. In fact, the book discussed a number of other grizzly attacks and murders that were more damning of the National Park Service with less contributory negligence on behalf of the victims.

After going into great detail about so many people involved in wildlife and park management, there is a ton of information shoved into the epilogue, including the introduction of wolves in Yellowstone and climate change. I wish Smith had limited some of the discussion of every wildlife researcher in the 1960's--and who they studied under--and focused more on the trial and the situation at Yellowstone. Other parks and statistics could have been brought in for context, but I feel the book could have had more focus.

On the whole, I found this book very interesting and informative. As you can tell from my long review, I learned a lot and had many opinions about the whole thing. However, I did get frustrated in the middle and end of the book wondering where the author was going and what he was trying to show. I was not convinced that the trial was a miscarriage of justice, and I was not convinced that everything would have been just fine if they'd only listened to the Craigshead brothers.

CBR15Bingo: "In the Wild" because it's all about wild animals in the National Parks

#34 [2023/CBR15] The Fifth Risk by Michael Lewis

I wanted to find a good political book for Cannonball Bingo, and my husband quickly recommended The Fifth Risk (2018) by Michael Lewis. I listened to the first couple of minutes on Audiobook, and thought it sounded interesting. So, I decided to give it a shot. 

The reason I found the beginning of the book so interesting was that it described in detail what was happening in government offices when Trump took over after the election. Civil service workers were waiting with their binders full of information to brief the new president's teams on what they did and what would need to be done. But the president's teams never showed up. It sounds like even though Trump had a transition team, led by Chris Christie, it was all for show. After Trump won the election, he booted Christie, ignoring all of his work, and putting his favorite lackeys wherever he wanted. Hundreds of appointed positions were never filled.

Much of the rest of the book is Lewis showing us how important some of these government agencies are. The federal government is a massive machine. It's hard to wrap your head around how even one small section works, so it's difficult if not impossible for a layperson to understand how cuts here and there will affect them.

Lewis discusses how the federal government protects us from nuclear annihilation, climate change, food-borne pathogens and more. It felt like an answer to the people that badmouth the federal government, showing them how important a role the feds play in our lives. One anecdote was a woman who ran a program that gave out government loans to promising, innovative new products. These products were too risky for conventional loans but the program had been remarkably successful. However, even many of the people receiving loans from the federal government had no idea where they came from.

I did have a couple problems with this book. First, the way Lewis jumped from agency to agency always left me feeling like I didn't quite understand what was happening and it was sometimes hard to follow. I always felt like I needed more context. Second, I wish Lewis had been more forthcoming about what he was writing about and his personal leanings. When I started, I thought this book was a criticism of Trump. Then it became something of a love letter to the federal government and a warning that we shouldn't take them for granted. I definitely learned some things, but the book didn't always feel very cohesive.

CBR15Bingo: "Politics" because it's all about the federal government and how Trump can't run it.

#30 [2023/CBR15] Empire of Pain by Patrick Radden Keefe

We recently read Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver for my book club. I was very impressed with it, and we inevitably began talking about the devastation of the opioid epidemic. I'm pretty sure I'd seen Empire of Pain: The Secret History of the Sackler Dynasty (2021) by Patrick Radden Keefe on book lists and recommendations. But after reading Demon Copperhead, I had a renewed interest in learning more about the specifics. It also helped that we'd already read Say Nothing by Patrick Radden Keefe, and it came highly recommended by a fellow book clubber.

The recent opioid epidemic is a huge and complex topic. Empire of Pain focuses on the pharmaceutical company that started it all with it's "slow release" pills of strong narcotics, and the greedy Sackler family owners who raked in the money. Keefe tells the story of three generations of the Sackler family, beginning with three brothers (Arthur, Mortimer, and Raymond) coming of age during the Great Depression. At first I was only impressed by the oldest brother, Arthur. He managed to get a medical degree and earn enough money for his parents to purchase a business during the Great Depression. He singlehandedly took care of his entire family under very difficult circumstances. After medical school, he worked at an asylum, not happy with the care the mental patients received. He wanted something more caring and more humane and helped develop some of the first psychiatric drugs. 

But Arthur also callously cheated on two of his wives, mostly disregarded his children, and first made his fortune by falsely advertising the uses and benefits of valium, buying the FDA along with it. His accomplishments were impressive, but he was very shady as well. Initially deeply involved in drug advertising, he secretly invested and owned the primary rival advertising firm in NYC, so he could corner the market without worrying about conflicts of interest. One thing Arthur did with this money was buy his brothers a small pharmaceutical company for them to run: Purdue Frederick.

Arthur, Mortimer, and Raymond's families expanded quickly with a number of wives and children, and they were all very rich. But Purdue Frederick was just a normal pharmaceutical company making normal profits until Raymond's son, Frederick, and Mortimer's daughter, Kathe, became involved with the idea of taking morphine and covering it in a time release capsule. The Sacklers wanted to make morphine more widely used by making it more accessible. Taking a little pill is a lot easier than injections, and they worked to change the idea that morphine is for cancer patients--saying that it's appropriate for all kinds of pain, large and small. This pill was advertised as not addictive even though they had done no clinical trials regarding addiction and had evidence to the contrary.

When their morphine pill was wildly successful, they decided to take oxycodone and do the same thing--cover it with a time release capsule, and aggressively sell it to everyone they could--as oxycontin. In their research they found that doctors erroneously perceived oxycodone as less potent than morphine even though it is at least twice as powerful. By buying doctors, FDA officials, outright lying in their literature, and aggressively pushing oxycontin with thousands of sales reps, they quickly made a fortune.

There had already been numerous indications of addiction with their morphine pill, and things only accelerated with the more powerful oxycontin. Purdue Pharma (new business) denied any kind of addiction problems, even as they said that patients might need more and more of the drug to contain the pain. They also had terms like physical dependence and pseudowithdrawal to explain away the very real addiction that people were suffering from.

When communities and families devastated by the opioid epidemic began looking into the Sacklers and Purdue Pharma, the prosecutors found a lot of damning evidence. But with aggressive lobbying, the Sacklers avoided criminal liability in the mid 2000's, instead letting the company plead guilty and pay a $600 million fine. And then they continued doing the exact same illegal practices they'd been doing before--but this time also expanding to the rest of the world.

In the end, the Sackler's were able to avoid criminal liability entirely, walking away with a large majority of the profits. In public as well as private communications, they never expressed any remorse. The most accountability they really faced was many of the museums and universities eventually took the Sackler name off of their buildings and wings when it became untenable to continue to memorialize them.

I definitely had some schadenfreude when people finally started calling out the Sackler family for their deeds. It was frustrating and fascinating to see the second and third generations of Sacklers parading around with this obscene amount of money and power they didn't earn. There were some that had nothing to do with Purdue Pharma, breaking out on their own, but they still benefitted off the many millions of dollars they received from the company each year. It was an awkward dance to watch them distance themselves from the company while refusing to acknowledge, or possibly even admit to themselves, the wrong done by that company.

I thought this book was well-written, relatively easy to follow given the subject matter, and simply an important topic to understand. Having read about Theranos and Weinstein, the way Purdue and the Sackler family avoided accountability was very familiar: buy high priced lawyers; push people around with your money; disseminate false information; and use/buy connections in the government. It's frustrating how much power a company/person can have in this supposedly equitable nation.

Highly Recommended.

CBR15Bingo: "Edibles" - because this book is all about drugs

#4 [2022/CBR14] And the Band Played On by Randy Shilts

My boyfriend recommended that we watch And the Band Played On together. It looked like a good movie, but I knew I wanted to read the book first. Initially I was intimidated by the lengthy six hundred-some-odd pages, but I eventually bought And the Band Played On: Politics, People, and the AIDS Epidemic by Randy Shilts. Originally published in 1987, I read the 20th Anniversary edition. 

I was quite young when AIDS broke out in the United States, and the epidemic has never affected me personally. I vaguely remember watching a movie in middle school of a kid who got AIDS from a blood transfusion, and that's about it. More recently, I read The Great Believers by Rebecca Makkai. It was the first book that really made me see how devastating AIDS was for the communities hit hardest. Makkai's portrayal of AIDS among gay men in Chicago probably led me to reading this book.

I thought this book was interesting and readable. There is an incredible amount of detailed information, starting with one of the first European cases of AIDS, as well as the first known cases in New York and San Francisco. Shilts discusses who figured out there was a new disease, and who responded well to it. There are a very large number of players involved in this book, which could sometimes be confusing, but it was fascinating to see how it all went down with the benefit of hindsight.

What makes this book even more interesting now are all the comparisons you can make to Covid. The only difference is that with the passage of time, it has now become clear who was right and who was wrong when it comes to AIDS. In the midst of it, with many clamoring voices, disparate reactions, and newly emerging research, I can see how it would be difficult for the average layperson to have any idea of what was actually going on. 

"Later, everybody agreed the baths should have been closed sooner; they agreed health education should have been more direct and timely. And everybody also agreed blood banks should have tested blood sooner, and that a search for the AIDS virus should have been started sooner, and that scientists should have laid aside their petty intrigues. Everybody subsequently agreed that the news media should have offered better coverage of the epidemic much earlier, and that the federal government should have done much, much more. By the time everyone agreed to all this, however, it was too late. Instead, people died. Tens of thousands of them."

There are so many fascinating details in this book, but I could go on forever if I tried to cover it all. Instead, I think I'll just do a walk of shame for those people who most annoyed me for putting their own interests above other people's lives and generally acting like assholes. This is certainly not a comprehensive list.

1. Reagan administration - Not only did the Reagan administration consistently refuse to put any new money towards any kind of AIDS research, they lied to Congress about not needing any more money. They consistently claimed that AIDS was "their number one priority" while making it difficult for doctors to make any headway on it. The hypocrisy drove me crazy. If you're going to callously ignore people who are suffering and dying because you disagree with their lifestyle, own up to it.

2. "In Albany, Governor Mario Cuomo was proof that official disinterest in AIDS knew no party lines." (340). The New York City mayor was no better. It's fascinating that San Francisco became known as the AIDS capital of the world even though New York was the center of the epidemic and had significantly more cases. The only difference was San Francisco was actually doing something about it while New York was sticking its head in the sand. This was partly due to the fact that gay men in New York were generally more closeted while gay men in San Francisco held significant political power.

3. Bath Houses - even with their customers dying and knowing that they were the main source of transmission, bath houses used their political and economical power to keep their businesses open and spreading infections left and right. Initially, they were only asked to provide information on AIDS, and failed to do even that. Even when it became obvious that major changes were needed, they threatened to withdraw their advertising from gay newspapers and organized protests to keep their businesses open.

4. Blood banks - even when information was out there showing that people were getting AIDS from blood transfusions, the blood banks refused to do any kind of testing. Stanford University Hospital was the only major medical center in the United States to test blood for evidence of AIDS infection early on. Thousands of people died horrible deaths, including a beloved San Francisco grandmother who'd had hip surgery, because blood banks did not want the expense of testing. Dr. Bove requires special recognition in this category for congratulating himself for being "technically accurate" when he said that "evidence for blood transmission is lacking"--giving the blood banks reason to deny the CDC's recommendations for testing blood. He later said, "I was extremely cautious about my choice of words. I didn't want to go on the record either way. I was smart enough not to say it wasn't there. Technically, I was not inaccurate." Congratulations, Dr. Bove, for being technically accurate and still responsible for thousands of deaths.

5. Dr. Robert Gallo was especially irritating, seeming to care more about his own ego than anything else. Apparently Gallo was a well-known researcher who had isolated another virus earlier in his career. He was sure that HIV was another version of the virus he had isolated previously--because of course the world should revolve around his accomplishments. But when French doctors at the Pasteur institute isolated the HIV virus, calling it LAV, Gallo went out of his way to denounce them and make sure that the rest of the world took no notice of their remarkable find. Then, at least half a year later, Gallo stated that he'd found the virus that causes AIDS. Funny enough, he found the virus after the French doctors had given him a sample of the LAV virus they had isolated. And the virus Gallo eventually isolated was virtually identical to the one he was given--impossible unless the virus had come from the same person. Gallo's ego continued to slow down AIDS research throughout the 1980's.

6. Gaetan Dugas was a French-Canadian airline steward who was one of the earliest AIDS patients. He slept with thousands of men and was sometimes called "Patient zero." What makes Dugas unlikable were his actions after he knew he had AIDS and knew he could spread it to others. There were reports of a man matching his description turning the lights down in a private room in a bathhouse. After he slept with someone, he would turn up the lights, showing his lesions and say, "I have gay cancer, and now you do, too."

All in all, this was a great book. Shilts managed to give an idea of the big picture while focusing in on enough people that you could see how devastating and terrifying this new disease was to those suffering from it. I also came to realize how much politics and perception can affect our health. Highly recommended.

#52 [2021/CBR13] Caste by Isabel Wilkerson

I was happy when my book club chose to read Caste (2020) by Isabel Wilkerson. I'd already read The Warmth of Other Suns by Wilkerson and had Caste on my reading list. Although the underlying theme is still race in America, I found Caste to be very different from Warmth of Other Suns. Caste explains how slavery created a caste system in America that still survives today. Wilkerson does this by exploring the eight pillars of caste and comparing the caste systems in America, India, and Nazi Germany. Although I found Warmth a little more interesting because Wilkerson focused on the lives of specific people, I thought this book was very well written and enlightening.

The eight pillars of caste:

1. Divine will and laws of nature: Just as the "untouchables" in India were told they should accept their lot and work hard to be born into a better life, the Bible was used to defend slavery. Noah cursed the descendants of his son, Ham, with servitude. The belief that African-Americans were descended from Ham was a primary justification for slavery.

2. Heritability: In America, if you were born to a slave mother, you were a slave. It didn't matter that your father was Thomas Jefferson, and you were 3/4 white. 

3. Endogamy and Control: endogamy is limiting marriage within a certain community. No fuss was given when landowners raped their female slaves to bring them more slaves. But intermarriage was unthinkable. 41 of the 50 states passed laws making intermarriage a crime. Alabama did not throw out its law against intermarriage until the year 2000. [Fortunately, the Supreme Court holding in Loving v. Virginia made this law unconstitutional in 1967.] "Even then, 40 percent of the electorate in that referendum voted in favor of keeping the marriage ban on the books." (111)

4. Purity v. Pollution: The Jim Crow laws in the South are examples of separating the castes. Wilkerson discussed how intensely (and often violently) swimming pools were kept segregated. She had a heartbreaking story of one black boy who played on an all-white baseball team. They decided to have a party at the local swimming pool, where he was not allowed. All his teammates were inside splashing around, while he sat in the grass, outside the fence. Eventually his coach convinced the lifeguards to let the boy into the pool. They had all the white people get out of the water, and then put him on the raft and pushed him around the pool. He was told, no matter what, do not touch the water.

5. Occupational Hierarchy: Post slavery, Black people were severely limited in what kind of jobs they could do, and there was intense, and often violent, pressure for them to "stay in their place." In addition, the South Carolina legislature decreed after the Civil War that "no person of color shall pursue or practice the art, trade or business of an artisan, mechanic or shop-keeper." without obtaining an [expensive] license that is only good for a year. The license only applied to people of color, cost $100 and had to be renewed every year. $100 in those times was close to $1,200 today.

6. Dehumanization and Stigma: Unfortunately, Wilkerson had plenty of examples to show dehumanization from slavery, post-slavery, and much more recent times. The prevalence and acceptance of lynches is especially disturbing. These were family functions where they sold memorabilia and sent postcards to family and friends. In addition, James Marion Sims, who would later be heralded as the founding father of gynecology did horrific experiments on slave women giving birth. [Wilkerson recommends Medical Apartheid by Harriet A. Washington for more on this subject.] It's also very reminiscent of the medical experiments of the Nazis.

7. Terror as Enforcement, Cruelty as a Means of Control: During slavery there was whipping, burning, castration, and other horrors to keep people in line. After slavery there was also lynching and other violent reprisals for any Black person who did not conform.

8. Inherent Superiority v. Inherent Inferiority: the assumption that one is better than the other to justify their conduct toward the lower caste. 

Wilkerson also discusses how the caste system still affects all Americans today. It gives us health problems, it limits opportunity, and it affects us deeply--sometimes consciously and sometimes unconsciously. It is here that it is especially helpful to see the comparisons between India and the United States. I think it might be easier for an American to see the long-term consequences of a caste system in India, where Americans are more of a neutral observer, than in the United States, where our perception has already been affected by the caste system here.

Highly recommended. I will leave you with some random facts I learned while reading.

-"The French writer Alexis de Tockqueville toured antebellum America in the 1830s and observed that only the 'surface of American society is covered with a layer of democratic paint.'" (79)

-"[W]hite felons applying for a job were more likely to get hired than African-Americans with no criminal record."

-During WWII the French military was told by the US military to not be so friendly with the black soldiers. "The fact that military command would take the time in the middle of one of the most vicious wars in human history to instruct foreigners on the necessity of demeaning their own countrymen suggests that they considered adherence to caste protocols to be as important as conducting the war itself." (225)

-Majority of white voters did not support President Obama in either election; Obama carried every state that Abraham Lincoln had won in 1860.

-In 2015, police were killing unarmed African-Americans at 5 times the rate of white Americans.

-Federal government paid reparations to the slave owners but not the slaves.

-The third Monday in January is Robert E. Lee Day in Mississippi and Alabama.

#7 [2021/CBR13] A Children's Bible by Lydia Millet

I first saw A Children's Bible by Lydia Millet on NPR's Best Books of 2020. It immediately caught my attention, but then I saw it was a finalist for the National Book Award and was one of the New York Times Best Books of the Year. It felt like fate was telling me to read this book. All I knew going into it was that it was some kind of allegory for climate change.

Evie is our narrator. She's probably fifteen or sixteen years old. Her parents have gotten together with a number of other families in a "great house" on a lake for summer vacation. All the kids sleep up in the attic and avoid their parents as much as possible. In fact, their parents are so embarrassing that the kids have started a game where they try to avoid anyone else figuring out who their parents are. Evie has a younger brother, Jack, who she looks out for since her parents aren't paying any attention. I felt an eerie sense of unreality while reading this book. On the one hand, everything that occurs is basically believable, but something also felt off. Why did the parents not care about their children? The disgust the teens felt for their parents felt familiar but also extreme.

The kids head down to the ocean for a camping trip on the beach and meet some incredibly wealthy children staying on a yacht. Shortly after they get back, they are deluged by a terrible storm. A tree falls onto the great house, crashing through the roof and soaking the attic. The parents react by getting high and having an orgy.

Evie's brother, Jack, is a sweet, sensitive kid. One of the parents gave him a children's version of the Bible. He's been reading it and interpreting it on his own. He and his friend, Shel, take it upon themselves to save the animals from the rising floodwater. When one of the older kids tells him that he needs two of every animal, he answers that other people would be saving animals, too.

The kids eventually ditch their useless parents and take off with a groundskeeper, hoping to make it to the safety and comfort of the home of the richest kid in their midst. They are sidetracked by bad roads to a farm where they meet up with four "trail angels" from the Appalachian Trail. A lot more happens to the kids. Their parents get sick, they face some bad guys, and a baby is born. Some of these things seem to come directly from the Bible, but it was hard for me to understand why. A baby is born, tracking the birth of Jesus, but she doesn't have much to do with the rest of the story. Jack decides that his Bible is in code; that God is actually nature, and Jesus is science. And if we believe in Jesus (science), he (it) will save us.

Eventually the kids and parents reunite at the rich kid's house. The kids plan for the worst, dragging their parents along with them. Even though the story of Revelation is not in Jack's Children's Bible, the older kids understand that's where they're heading.

I'm not sure how I feel about this book. It's a fast read and kept my interest, but it also just felt weird. There were enough odd things going on that this book did not feel like the real world. And the connection with the Bible--besides Jack's remarkable interpretation--felt somewhat random. Characters weren't acting as I would expect and they appeared and disappeared without warning. However, when I heard about the snow storms and power outages in Texas, the first thing I thought of was this book. I think it's one of those that's going to make more of an impact on me than I initially realized.