Krysten’s Review

This quick read is part of the “Forward” series curated by Blake Crouch, in which six authors envision a world in the future. In Veronica Roth’s “Ark,” the first in the series, scientists are cataloging plant life a few days before the literal end of the world.

This isn’t an action-filled sci-fi adventure, as you might expect an apocalyptic story to be. Rather, it’s contemplative and reflective. Despite the fact that a giant asteroid is hours away from colliding with Earth, there’s no real urgency or suspense. You know it’s coming, you know it’s inevitable—as do the characters—but it’s not concerning. It just is. They’ve known for 20 years this was going to happen, and so, on the eve of the end of life as we know it, it’s business as usual.

The focus, therefore, is on the small things, the things you don’t really notice until you realize you could lose them in an instant: The fragile beauty of a flower, for instance.

So maybe he had been apologizing for giving her life in the first place, when he knew it would be full of dread. She wished she could have told him that life was already full of dread, no matter who you were. That there was nothing you could have that you couldn’t one day lose.

Beautifully written, but I found it to be slow and hard to get into, depressing rather than hopeful, with an ending that leaves the reader hanging.