The Violence - Delilah S. Dawson

Thriller

Rating: 9/10

If you thought that COVID was a bad pandemic, think again.

There’s new virus in town, one that makes people act funny. Out of character.  Violent.  Okay it sends seemingly harmless folks into blinding rages, emerging to find that they have possibly beaten someone brains to an oozing pulp with a Yeti. One that has no symptoms until it materializes. What fun right?

Chelsea has suffered under the thumb of her controlling and slyly abusive husband for years but when she finds out that they are locking up those infected until a vaccine is ready, she sees an out for her and her daughters.  Whipping her husband into a frenzy of anger, she locks them all in the bathroom he’s beating in with a baseball bat and calls the cops, claiming her husband has the Violence.  It’s brilliant and works, but not for long.  After seeking shelter with her estranged mother, she soon finds herself separated from her kids and on the run.

Don’t go into this book assuming it’s merely a pandemic thriller, yes God help me that’s a subgenre now, there is a lot of meat on the bones of this story.  But we also get surprising moments of levity as well; a mother with the virus who chooses to earn money for the vaccine by taking up professional wrestling; a grandmother who finds herself chased around her mansion by a hangry infected toddler…can you imagine!?  And finally, the daughter who wants to save the world alongside a couple of misfits with an RV and a batch of homemade vaccine.

At its heart, this is an unflinching and visceral story of the resilience and redemption people are capable of.  That even though life has crushed them in every way imaginable hope and joy can still be found.

Book Pairing(s): The Power by Naomi Alderman, Girl A by Abigail Dean, I’ll Find You In The Dark by Nathan Ripley