the stranding - kate sawyer

there’s something so comforting about reading end of the world books and this is one of the best i’ve read

set on a beach in new zealand it follows two strangers, ruth and nik, after they survive a nuclear blast and have to find their way in this new world. it flashes back to the protagonist’s life before, her family, her boyfriend, and the reasons that lead her to boarding a plane and flying across the world

one of the things i loved most was the way time passes, never at the pace you expect. it takes you through such a peaceful, hopeful, resourceful way of life, though you’re aware you’re never far from danger, this being a nuclear apocalypse and everything

i really loved the characters and the ones i hated i even loved the language around them, the way your perspective changes as ruth’s does. i loved the friendships, the families, the community

i’m tipping into that stage when you love a book so much you become gushy and useless in your review and all you can say to everyone is please love yourself and read it

it gives me all the same feelings station eleven did, which is huge for me, but it turns out peace at the end of the world is exactly what i need

An interesting story about life and death and what it means to be alive. The story is narrated through alternating chapters of before and after the apocalypse, which I found very confusing until I was some way into the story and it started to make sense. The "before" side of the story is about Ruth's life in London, her friends, her family and her relationships. I didn't find Ruth's character particularly appealing and so I never felt any empathy or connection. The "after" side of the story is Ruth in New Zealand and how she survives. There were quite a few interesting and thought-provoking ideas in this part of the story, but for the most part it was rather boring.
Overall it was well-written but nothing special.

I received this book from the publisher via Netgalley for a review. A good novel, Plotting and characters well drawn, echoes of Nevil Shute's On The Beach. If you are looking for something different you won't go wrong with this book

This was a very unique book. A bit strange at times, but it does make you stop and think. What is important in life and would running away actually change things. I really enjoyed this book, but can honestly say I’ve never read anything like it before.

A story told in alternative chapters of before and after a global disaster.
Unfortunately I couldn’t get into this story at all because of the constant changes in the timeline that made the story hard to follow.
Thank you to NetGalley and Hodder & Stoughton for my e-copy in exchange for an honest review.

Considering I had read several absolutely glowing reviews of The Stranding prior to reading, my expectations were perhaps a little high and in all honesty, weren't quite met. However, it is a beautifully written book with some spectacular sequences and several lovely meditations on loss and grief. I just sometimes felt that - considering it's a book centred around surviving an apocalyptic event - not a great deal actually happened. The sections detailing Ruth's pre-apocalypse life in London were surprisingly engaging, though, and the way in which the slow dawning knowledge of absolute disaster strikes first the reader, and then Ruth, as she disembarks from a plane in New Zealand were fantastically handled. Overall a strong 3.5 stars rounded up to 4.

The synopsis for this book really drew me in from the start. The book follows Ruth who travels from the UK to New Zealand and shelters from the end of the world in the mouth of a stranded whale. For me, it didn’t sound like anything I had ever read.

The chapters throughout alternate between before (mainly in London) and after (in New Zealand) and I think this worked really well as it compelled me to continue to read so I could find out what had happened at the end of the last chapter. The way the two stories then meet at the end is heartbreaking as you know what is about to happen. There is an air of mystery around how the end of the world actually comes about. This is both clever and frustrating in a way as I wanted to know what had happened (but that’s just me being inquisitive!!).

This book is beautifully descriptive - I truly felt transported to New Zealand and the author did a fantastic job of setting the scene of how Ruth’s world looked after.

I would have loved a little more from the ending. This is not a criticism, it had to end somewhere, but I had enjoyed it so much that I wanted to know more. I would love a second book to carry on the story!

Needless to say, I would definitely recommend this.

Thank you to Netgalley and Hodder & Stoughton for this ARC.

Ruth, a teacher, lives in London. She works, she drinks, she falls in love. Her life isn't simple or straightforward and the news around her, which she eschews, is increasingly bleak.

As her relationship disintegrates, Ruth decides to leave everything behind to travel to the other side of the world, hoping to work with whales in New Zealand. On arrival, however, the news that Ruth has been ignoring has now become inescapable. Away from all she knows and with no hope of survival, Ruth climbs into the mouth of a beached whale with a stranger.

When they emerge, life - and the world - has changed forever.

'The Stranding' isn't the kind of book I would usually pick up but something about it intrigued me and I was hooked from page one.

Told through dual timelines, we see Ruth trying to create a new life following a catastrophic global event - and the life experiences that brought her to this point. 'The Stranding' is beautifully written and is a meditation on family, femininity and reinvention.

I really liked that, although this huge world-altering event happened, Sawyer never delves too deeply into it, simply choosing to allude to certain possibilities. Another great thing about this novel is that it doesn't stray too far from its focal point: the characters.

Kate Sawyer has created believable, nuanced characters who engage the reader and stay with you beyond the span of the book. I spent the time I wasn't reading this book thinking about it. I suspect I will spend the rest of my life thinking about parts of this incredible novel. The scene in the airport between Ruth and her parents will stay with me forever.

Overall, 'The Stranding', although terrifying at times, is hopeful and optimistic, championing the triumph of the human spirit against all odds.

A truly amazing book! I have nothing but admiration for Kate Sawyer as both a story teller and writer. It isn’t often that both these skills collide but when they do it is both breathtaking and totally immersive. The ‘then’ and ‘now’ storyline device seems to be used quite frequently these days and I often find it to be off putting, but the way in which Kate handles this is so well done that I feel I cannot criticise her decision. In fact when both meet at the end of the story it is heartbreaking. I do still feel several days later a little tearful, this for me is the pinnacle of writing and I hope to see it become a classic. It would make an admirable addition to the reading lists for any college or university. Thank you Netgalley, publisher and especially Kate Sawyer for the opportunity to read this 5 star book in exchange for an honest review.

This book blew me away. It is rare to find a book that surprises me to the extent that I was surprised by The Stranding.

The book is about Ruth, a typical 20 something singleton living in London with Alex. He started off as someone exciting but now she's not so sure and she is reconsidering her options. So far so formulaic - but then Ruth decides it's time to move on. She travels to the other side of the world and discovers when she arrives that the worst has happened - and her life will never be the same. Stranded far from home and with little chance of survival, she takes shelter in the mouth of a whale with a stranger she meets on the beach. What they emerge into afterwards is a world that could not be more different to the one she left.

This is a book about grabbing the good times when they come around, enjoying the little things, and never settling, because you cannot possibly know what is around the corner. What would you do if you had to start again with nothing ?

I really liked this one. A compelling tale about life, relationships and survival. I am not always a fan of alternating between time periods but in this case it was handled well. To me, the story of Ruth's survival and her life before gave it the feel of her replaying the events that lead her to this particular point. The book had a much gentler feel than I expected from something that could be called dystopian but that and not making the end of the world the main focus made this really work for me.

There is a lyrical, almost mythical sense to this book (beautifully shared by the characters post-apocalypse, who almost fail to understand their 'origin' story themselves) that, for me, linked back to Maori mythology as well as contemporary dystopian fiction, such as Station Eleven. Beautifully and sparsely written, I found the scenes in NZ much more powerful than Ruth's life in London - possibly because, while I appreciate the narrative sidestep that 'Ruth doesn't like to watch or read the news' as a way to avoid explaining exactly what did cause the apocalypse, I'm not sure I really bought it as a valid excuse when everything else was rendered in such careful detail. But it's a quibble because this is a fascinating and tender story about love and grief and memory that is more than rich enough to make up for that. Stunning.

I thought this quite a positive book, given the post-apocalyptic subject matter.

The book throws together a couple who meet by chance on a beach in New Zealand and then hours later shelter from armageddon in the body of a stranded blue whale. The narrative is told from the perspective of the woman, and tells through flashbacks the story of why she happens to be on the beach on that day. It tells of her whirlwind romance and gradual disillusionment with her controlling boyfriend in London before her trip to New Zealand, and this is interwoven with the story of how the couple survive and thrive in their beach home, surviving off the food that the grow, catch and scavenge from the locality.

One of the key themes in the book is about love and what it means to be in love. It contrasts the heady, almost chemical feelings she has pre-stranding with the solid, gradual and consistent love she has post-stranding. It leaves the reader in no doubt as to which makes people happier.

Kate Sawyer's novel is a sparsely beautiful book about an apocalypse. Except, it's not. While the nuclear aftermath is certainly a driving force for this breathtaking book, it's human resilience, hope and love that take centre stage. It's about the bonds that form. The people you meet. The ways you survive.

The combination of flashback and present events is a stark reminder that who we are after a traumatic event is not always the same as who we were before. I loved seeing how Ruth evolved, how she drew hope and joy from a ruined landscape but all in a very pragmatic and human way.

There were echoes of Children of the Dust by Louise Lawrence and Ben Smith's Doggerland in this book, showing how humans adapt to a post-apocalyptic landscape and endure.

I loved it.

Oh my! What a book.
What concept had me intrigued. A woman survives the end of the world by hiding inside of a whale. But this story is about so much more than survival. It's about nature, about human behaviour and the true meaning of love.
I read this in a day - just couldn't put it down. A unique and wonderful read.

Wow - what a captivating and unsettling book! I read it in one whole day because I couldn’t put it down and then couldn’t stop thinking about it. A story told in twin strands - Before and After - leading you in a circle through Ruth’s life from past to present. Full of love, hope and horror, it will leave you dazed.
How would you survive if your world literally ended before your eyes?

This book absolutely blew me away, I read it basically all in one (very unplanned) sitting after I had to try the prologue a few times before I really got hooked. It's so hard to sum up this book neatly without either making it sound grim or twee, but it's not really either: it's about life and death (before and) after the end of the world. I found it a really intense read, despite how hopeful it manages to be, and really gripping, despite how mundane a lot of it is.

I haven't ever really read anything that meshes together so well a longer-term post-apocalyptic storyline (think: The Road, Oryx and Crake, The Day of The Triffids,) with a melancholy slice of life type narrative that is only thematically tied to the former in a character driven way - a lot of dual narrative apocalyptic books focus on the pre-catastrophe and the events that lead up to that, but Ruth is just living her life, if anything she's actively avoiding the news cycle. The two stories are joined by Ruth's journey and growth and relationships, not the end of the world and how that came to be.

I really love the prose and Sawyer's writing style, I personally find present tense really engaging and readable, and I think it works very well for this book given there is so much *doing*. An awful lot of the story set in the 'After' is detailing the business of survival, but I never felt bored by it. I liked that the 'Before' stuck to this as well, rather than switching to past tense (which would've been my guess) because both narratives weave together much better like this, and it makes the past seem kind of dreamier, weirdly, having something you know is in the past (the Before) still being described as immediate has that effect. There's a really strange comparison that happens when you go from reading about people trying desperately to survive to reading about someone's parents disapproving of their boyfriend. It never makes the Before storyline feel trivial, exactly, but it does sort of nudge you in that direction.

The POV switching works quite nicely although it's much more rapid than I would normally prefer, but once I was used to it, it didn't take me out of the story at all. I definitely liked that Nik's POV was included, I think being stuck entirely in Ruth's head would've made the story too claustrophobic (and the ending a bit jarring.)

I found myself going back over all the little bits of information Sawyer gives about the nature of the disaster to try and figure out what happened - which is definitely not something you're supposed to be able to do. This book very deliberately withholds the details from you, and whilst I think that was a great choice, I couldn't help but keep trying, anyway. There are more and more clues dropped and you really do feel like you might find out - but you don't. On the one hand, I think that staying away from this is great - it doesn't become miserable or gruesome for the sake of it, and it's just more universal and character-driven when you're not concerned with the details. But on the other hand, I was desperate to know! I think this is me bringing more of my expectations of the genre than anything else, and I kind of liked that it denied me throughout.

That aside, the post-apocalypse storyline unfolds quite predictably but so beautifully I can't fault it at all. I sniffled my way through the last chapters despite seeing it coming a mile off, and I suppose that's where the dual storylines come together so well - the unravelling of Ruth's 'Before' life takes over when the 'After' life follows more predictable patterns.

I requested this e-ARC on NetGalley after seeing so many positive things on twitter, and it was a delight to read.

Thanks to NetGalley and Hodder & Stoughton for this Advanced Review Copy.

This is a book from a debut author, and right off the bat, I shall say this is likely to be a marmite book. Readers will either love it or hate it. I fall on the side of not liking it at all, unfortunately. I tried. I really did.

The writing is set in third person, present tense, and jumps between the characters-literally: it head hops like crazy from one person's narrative to another with no indications or warnings whatsoever. Add to that the extreme passivity of the writing and only partial sentences, and it you may see how this drove me nuts. And then nothing ever just happens; the characters either feel it or hear it, etc., or they start to or begin to. And then there's the telling what's just been shown wonderfullly (such as one instance of great sarcasm. We didn't then need telling it was sarcasm. We could work that out for ourselves.) I found myself rolling my eyes more than not.

All of which is a shame, because some of the narrative held my attention. And this could have been a great book. Having persevered to the finish line, nonetheless, I found myself unsatisfied. I saw no point to this tale. The two main characters were no longer with us, and we had the next two characters (I'm trying to avoid spoilers here) setting off on a journey, and that was it. Totally open ended and not tied off at all.

As you can see, this book was not for me. Sorry. But it may be for you. I enjoyed some things, so I offer a soft 2 stars on The Stranding

***

NOTE ON RATINGS: I consider a 3-star rating a positive review. Picky about which books I give 5 stars to, I reserve this highest rating for the stories I find stunning and which moved me.

5 STARS: IT WAS AMAZING! I COULD NOT PUT IT DOWN! — Highly Recommended.
4 STARS: I WOULD PULL AN ALL-NIGHTER — Go read this book.
3 STARS: IT WAS GOOD! — An okay read. Didn’t love it. Didn’t hate it.
2 STARS: I MAY HAVE LIKED A FEW THINGS —Lacking in some areas: writing, characterisation, and/or problematic plot lines.
1 STAR: NOT MY CUP OF TEA —Lots of issues with this book.

I thought this was an incredible book. I was pulled in right away by the writing and the imagery, I too have always loved whales. This is beautifully written, poignant and yet also it has a certain spark to it. The characters – especially Ruth – felt utterly real, and I found myself completely absorbed in the dual narrative: what happened to her in the lead-up to finding herself at the site of a stranded whale at the end of the world (as we know it), and what will happen to her now. I found the world-building in particular quite extraordinary, and yet this is a very human story. For a book with a bleak outlook on the future of our species, it also ended for me with a feeling of hope. I loved it!

The Stranding is a meditative examination of life and death. It's also a useful manual for surviving nuclear Armageddon - turns out you can hide under under the tongues of large mammals.

The plot unfolds over two time periods - one before and one after aforementioned apocalypse. I was initially interested in this book due to the dystopian element, but in fact the period before the bomb was more interesting, focusing on the main character's lovelife. However, tales of infidelity and dream-men turning out not to be so dreamy aren't really my thing, so the relative slowness of the post-apocalyptic sections was a disappointment.

The book is well-written and I liked the mature way death is addressed but I was never totally gripped. However, I think there will be a big market for the book and I'm sure it will do very well.