Whether Violent or Natural

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One of the novel's strengths lies in the captivating voice of the narrator, a young woman living on the island. Her narrative style is archaic and poetic, drawing readers into her story. However, her reliability and the coherence of her tale are questionable, as she withholds crucial information about her past and the reasons for her presence on the island. This ambiguity adds intrigue but also leaves readers wondering if her account can be trusted. While I agree with other readers that the writing was VERY forced and overly flowery and confusing, I felt like it fit well with the unreliability and instability of the narrator. The main characters were creepy and unlikeable and the relationship between them was unnerving. I enjoyed reading this and liked the twist toward the end.

Lets just say, I should have trusted the people and moved on with my life. Whether Violent or Natural was the most pointless addition to my life, ever. Barely an addition at all, possibly even a subtraction. in fact is any character in here worthy of care from us? i just feel sorry for crevan for being trapped on that island with her. An unconscious woman washes ashore on the island where 'Kit' and Crevan dwell in isolation and safety from an, ostensibly, savage post apocalyptic outside world. Drama unfolds from there. Kit relates how a bacteria had emerged on the mainland that could “devour plastic by the tonne”, offering a solution to the proliferation of plastics destroying the planet. But new strains evolved and began to consume everything. Then they developed “a taste for the human…”.In a world devastated by antimicrobial resistance, two survivors are thrown into crisis when a woman washes ashore on the remote island where they live An interesting take on the post-apocalyptic novel with the young, turbulent Kit who lives on an isolated island with the enigmatic Creven. They live off the plentiful supplies of an emergency bunker and a fruitful greenhouse after catastrophic antibiotic resistance sweeps the world . Their strange, shifting relationship is challenged when an unconscious woman washes up on shore. Creven is determined to aid while Kit is unsure of letting someone into their haven who could bring disease with her. Their conflict brings deception and and secrecy to the fore.

I tried to get into this book; the premise seemed to fulfill my hopes that it would be a enjoyable read (and namedrops books I quite enjoyed, like Piranesi and Station Eleven). I like it when post-apocalyptic books get you to think about the world they depict, and especially how that reflects on our own. However, this book has a bizarre writing style, not to mention a protagonist whose way of thinking was alienating rather than inviting. There’s also a really strange quasi-sex scene in the first part of the book that felt really out of place. The book sends a lot of mixed signals on what type of book it is trying to be, and the mysterious nature of the setting and the characters only made me frustrated, not intrigued.In this world plagued by mutating bacteria, prevention of contamination is all consuming. The remaining survivors must do what they can to survive infection, including avoiding any other humans. When a woman washes ashore, barely alive, the real story begins. Kit and Crevan are always on the same wavelength so when Crevan wishes to save the woman and Kit disagrees, tension ramps up, events escalate and buried secrets surface. Is this idyllic existence all it seems or is the truth too much to bear? The narration is sort of stream-of-consciousness (and Kit is an extremely unreliable narrator) and the book gives me a “We Have Always Lived in the Castle” vibe. Kit has been alone for a long, long time, and can be quite childish and strange as a result. But this is also a result of trauma, and not just the trauma of prolonged isolation. Kit and Crevan have a pretty messy relationship, codependent and manipulative and even somewhat abusive, but that’s almost to be expected of two messed up people who are each other’s entire world, while the world outside is ending. The prose was poetic and full of attempted twists of language and wordplays to turn meaning. Not all such attempts failed or fell flat. On balance though, for me they added little more than a lot of words. I really wanted to like this book. Some of its passages will stay with me for a very long time; it carries a lyrical resonance that reminded me of being caught in a daydream, contemplating all kinds of metaphors for life. The book’s narrator Kit is incredibly insightful and sharp in her observations on post-apocalyptic life and scarily enough, some of these observations are useful for everyday life too.

With “Whether Violent or Natural,” author Natasha Calder has given us a dystopian novel about the end of humanity. While I admired some of her expressive, even lyric prose, I also thought the book burdened by a number of problems and inconsistencies. All in all, it’s not the best dystopian novel I’ve ever read. bones of an interesting story - dystopian chaos future where a superbug has left a woman and a man to their own on an island. enter (on the tides) a floating mystery body.This is a book about trauma, and Kit's inner monologues make up the majority of the novel. They are written in lyrical prose with lots of wordplay. Because so much of the story is told through Kit's eyes, with few brief moments of dialogue, the prose was overwhelming at times. This was definitely not a novel I could finish in one sitting. I needed breaks from Kit’s wandering, unsound inner monologues. I was also slightly annoyed that a lot of the story’s mysteries were resolved in info-dumpy sections. I thought the story could have been more compelling if as readers we got some of the details about the distopian world and Kit's past from more natural character interactions, or that Crevan could have let more information slip. While this narrative wasn't my favorite, I was intrigued by the prose style and look forward to seeing more work by this author. I really wanted to like this book. Hell, I really tried to like this book! Friends, I did not like this book. I had problems, they were many, and I can't find a ton of redeeming bits, though it wasn't all bad so I will try? The concept of antibiotic resistance is certainly timely and relevant and plausible, and I like that it was presented as such a dire situation. Because it would be, of course. I don't really get the connection with plastic, but whatever, that was the least of my concerns. Experimental fiction . . . Calder tells a unique tale that will appeal to many cli-fi fans.” – Library Journal A book begging to be read on the beach, with the sun warming the sand and salt in the air: pure escapism.

At times I felt information was dropped like stone, or maybe an avalanche. Here, the guise of narration in the MC's voice grew too thin. Now I’m at the point of publication, I’ve had enough distance from the book to see several things I’d do differently, but I’m happy with it as a product of what I was capable of at the time. My only misgiving is Kit – in bringing this story to a wider audience, I can’t help but feel I’ve betrayed a confidence. I know: ridiculous. I hope, though, that others will enjoy Kit’s company as much as I have. There’s a twist at the end, kind of a two-part twist, and I won’t spoil anything but I didn’t care for it because I felt like half of it was not foreshadowed well enough. It just kind of felt like it came out of nowhere. That being said, I did enjoy the book overall.The narrator of British author Calder’s eerie dystopian novel is a young woman living on an isolated island within sight of a mainland ravaged by infection. Whether Violent or Natural is a visceral and tension filled read. The flow of language reads effortlessly, and the combination of short and long chapters paces the story brilliantly and allows the sense of menace to ebb and flow. The story is told from Kit`s point of view. In this, Natasha Calder has created such an authentic voice for Kit and her complexities, she makes a compelling narrator. The author has used the unreliable witness trope to drive the plot. For me there's nothing wrong with using tried and tested methods to explore human nature and the darkness therein, the nature of reality and how suffering can break us and spread to those close to us. In this book, it worked a little sometimes and lapsed into dull cliché other times; generally bogged down by the language. On balance lukewarm. Whether Violent or Natural" is a dystopian novel with a rather interesting premise: antibiotic resistance is purging the world of humans. I’m the first to rate and review this book. It’s always optimal when the book was great and one gets to sing its praises and attract it some much deserved attention, but sometimes it’s just…