The First Five Minutes of the Apocalypse
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This is not a book about the apocalypse. In these pages, you won't find the hero. You won't find the ticking clock. You will not be in the room when they press the big red button. Instead, you'll find new life in the face of certain death, a boy whose prayers are answered in the worst way, mothers and sisters and friends who just want another second with their loved ones, and those who just want a moment to themselves. These are the stories from the ground. The experiences of those who saw the world come to its violent conclusion, and what really mattered at the end of all things. Featuring original fiction by Taryn Martinez, Carson Winter, D. Matthew Urban, Sara Tantlinger, Alex Fox, Tiffany Michelle Brown, Angela Sylvaine, M. Lopes da Silva, Andrew Cull, Ruth Anna Evans, Wendy N. Wagner, Gwendolyn Kiste, Olen Crowe, Brittany Johnston, Elou Carroll, Nick Bouchard, L. Marie Wood, W. Dale Jordan, Elford Alley, Chris Mason, Matthew M. Bartlett, Madison McSweeney, Rae Knowles, RJ Joseph, Emma E. Murray, V. Castro, Eoin Murphy, and J.A.W. McCarthy
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Do you enjoy stories that do not end well for anyone involved? Do you want to inflict emotional pain and small existential crises on yourself? Yes? Excellent, read this collection.
In this book you will find a collection of well written and engaging stories that confront mortality with different scenarios and protagonists (not all of them human), this is all about the end on the most personal level and it is brilliantly executed. It made me think of the movie Melancholia where the apocalypse is a background character to the characters inner lives and to how they face their own finality, it's emotionally heavy and there's a lot of potentially triggering material (do check the trigger warnings). There were a few stories I would have wanted more from but that's just me being greedy for a good story. While I had my favorites, I can honestly say that every entry in this collection was strong, and it took me a day or two to process before I could review.
There's a wide array of apocalypses and the characters are about as diverse as you can hope for which kept the collection from getting stale. Applegate really has a knack for putting together anthologies that keep their topic fresh.
I received an eARC of this book through Booksirens and this is my honest review.
