2/5 stars
How’d I find it? I have been meaning to pick up Paul Tremblay’s work for years and stumbled across this title at Politics & Prose.
Why not 3 or more stars? There is much to admire in Survivor Song, namely its humor, the holy bro-ness of teens Luis and Josh, and the terrifying opening scene in Natalie and Paul’s home that left my heart thumping. Cohesion is the novel’s main flaw, and it reveals itself early. While attacks by the infected bring the horror, these scenes quickly become repetitive and rarely teach us anything new. The chapters in which Natalie records messages to her unborn child present another thorn, as they fail both to advance the plot (and are infuriating rehashed in best friend Ramola’s narration) and to elicit the intended emotional tug. Tremblay calls this story a “song,” but I couldn’t hear the music.