“‘The windows to our soul, like panes of glass, do break.’”

-Alan Heathcock

I really, really hope Alan Heathcock isn’t a fortune teller. In this novel filled with lovely prose, Heathcock sketches an America under the grasp of a fundamentalist cult, wracked by the effects of climate change, and possibly violating the Geneva Convention.

40–if you’re trying to find it at your loca library, I recommend searching by the author’s name–is a dark and beautiful novel about one woman forced by circumstance to get involved in a revolution that she’s ambivalent about. (In many ways, Mazzy reminds me of a more adult Katniss Everdeen, though with past military experience, which I do wish the book went more into.)

The plot is fairly straightforward, and it can be a quick read; it’s really Heathcock’s language and ideas that make 40 stand out. I went into the concluding few pages with foreboding, anxious that it wouldn’t be a strong ending to a novel I’d been thoroughly enjoying, but was delightfully proven wrong–the final images are some of my favorites of the book.

I’d recommend picking this one up when you’re not in total dismay about the state and future of the world–if you can find a time like that in your schedule.