I was beyond grateful for Honus and he wasn't the last as they came out of the woodwork in the last bit of the book. And of course, the Mormon homestead doesn't ultimately hold either and also devolves but this is the place where finally, a glimmer of hope in the remaining decency of the male of the species is found. It's pretty much all downhill from there until Karen (aka The Unnamed Midwife/Dusty/Jane), reaches Utah. One attacks the main character in her own apartment right after she's survived the illness & it's not even a month into the collapse.
Either the remaining males devolved into violent, murderous, predatory rapists within an extremely short time period or the dregs of men had some secret immunity from the illness. There's one character in the very beginning that is, but his appearance is brief. What made this story most harrowing and to me, bordering on misery porn for the first two-thirds of the story is that there was nary a dash of male decency.
In this case, the illness kills off 98% of men and is even harsher on women and children. I won't recap the summary but suffice it to say that for anyone familiar with the things that tend to happen when civilisation falls and extinction event illness traipses around the world decimating the human population, all the usual horrors show up along with some enhanced hellscape touches. I'm a fan of apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic fiction so I'm fairly open to giving an unknown a chance. I happened upon this book and decided to give it a read not knowing much about it. The last third held the hope and is the only reason I'm interested in continuing with the series. It's the apocalypse but damn, I started rooting for the fever to finish off the job.
Initial thoughts: Good but seriously dark for almost the whole first two-thirds of the book bordering on misery porn. The Book of the Unnamed Midwife by Meg Elison
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