Afterland

By: Lauren Beukes

Narrated by: Bianca Amato

Children of Men meets The Handmaid's Tale in this "smartly written" and "splendid" thriller about how far a mother will go to protect her son from a hostile world transformed by the absence of men (Stephen King).

Most of the men are dead. Three years after the pandemic known as The Manfall, governments still hold and life continues—but a world run by women isn't always a better place.

Twelve-year-old Miles is one of the last boys alive, and his mother, Cole, will protect him at all costs. On the run after a horrific act of violence-and pursued by Cole's own ruthless sister, Billie—all Cole wants is to raise her kid somewhere he won't be preyed on as a reproductive resource or a sex object or a stand-in son. Someplace like home.

To get there, Cole and Miles must journey across a changed America in disguise as mother and daughter. From a military base in Seattle to a luxury bunker, from an anarchist commune in Salt Lake City to a roaming cult that's all too ready to see Miles as the answer to their prayers, the two race to stay ahead at every step . . . even as Billie and her sinister crew draw closer.

A sharply feminist, high-stakes thriller from award-winning author Lauren Beukes, Afterland brilliantly blends psychological suspense, American noir, and science fiction into an adventure all its own—and perfect for our times.

Critic reviews

Named one of the Hottest Books of the SummerGoodreads * Entertainment Weekly * Good Housekeeping * Milwaukee Journal Sentinel * Publishers Weekly * PopSugar * Literary Hub * CrimeReads

"Bowstring-taut, visceral, and incredibly timely: Beukes's plague-tale is a parable about the glory and terror of Americanism in times of calamity."—Cory Doctorow, author of Walkaway and Little Brother

"Part thriller, part science fiction, and all amazing"—Good Housekeeping

"A post-pandemic gender-spun thriller that's sharp-as-a-pin and manages both urgency and relevancy in equal measure. Gripping prose from the first page that made me want to be a better writer. Beukes always moves to the top of my must-read list."—Chuck Wendig, author of national bestseller Wanderers

"A harrowing tale that ably explores grief, motherhood, and gender roles . . . Beukes is a gifted storyteller who makes it thrillingly easy for readers to fall under her spell as she weaves a hypnotic vision of a fractured world without men. A propulsive and all-too-timely near-future thriller."—Kirkus Reviews

"Lauren Beukes is a writer with a startling imagination, and a masterful ability to rewrite the rules of whatever genre she turns to; and now, right on time, she has turned to dystopian plague."—Ben Winters, author of Underground Airlines and Golden State

"Eerily relevant . . . Beukes' tender, insightful treatment of the relationship between mother and son is significant, and the interplay between feuding sisters is fascinating, as well."—Booklist

"Deeply compelling . . . I haven't been able to stop thinking about Afterland. Beukes brings a deep tenderness to the tangle of humanity that comes with widespread grief and clumsy attempts at coping with the weight of loss. This is really something special."—Sarah Gailey, author of Upright Women Wanted and Magic For Liars

"I'm an enormous fan of Lauren Beukes. She's an endlessly interesting writer, able to bend and weld genre to ask provocative questions and bring light to the shadows of the human condition. Afterland is a thoroughly gripping, imaginative thriller about a mother protecting her son, a rare survivor of a devastating plague that wiped out most of Earth's male population. In this new world, women exercise power for and against each other--the power of love, the power of violence, unleashed in the absence of men."
—Steph Cha, author of Your House Will Pay

"Beukes nails the speed of the unraveling, and the strangeness of living in a suddenly altered world. I hope none of the rest of it comes true."—Emily Temple, Lit Hub

"A timely postapocalyptic tale"—PopSugar

Bad decisions.

An interesting view of the current gendercide craze. I appreciated the very believable steps governments might take when most of the male population dies. I was all in on the great premise: a mother trying to save her son. Unfortunately, this mother makes SO MANY bad decisions along the way that I began lose sympathy for her. The sister is a thinly drawn caricature, who also makes awful decisions. But again, the concept was interesting. Finally, Miles, apparently getting his mother's awful decision making gene, causes unnecessary plot tangents.
This should also have been a quarter shorter, as it lagged and went on unneeded descriptive tangents.
Not and easy read. So much promise.
All that said. the narrator was quite good.

Unoriginal, uninspired and entirely too long

I rarely feel the need to give a negative review unless I really dislike a book and that’s definitely the case here.

First, it’s important to point out that the premise of this book is not entirely original. Many other writers have explored the concept of a disease wiping out a specific gender (Brian Vaughn in “Y: The Last Man” and Frank Herbert in “The White Plague,” to name a few), but I still wanted to give this book a shot. Beukes brings nothing new to the table and even manages to make it boring. There’s no real mystery to the story despite being marketed as a dystopian thriller and much of the story unfolds in a predictable, uninspired fashion. What’s more, the ending is so utterly anticlimactic that one gets the sense that it should have been written as a short story. It’s eye-rollingly cheesy and cringe-worthy in its predictability.

The performance is the only saving grace here. Amato’s narration often saves what is otherwise a flat, platitudinous tale that is easily forgettable.

Fun read

I like the dystopian world, hitting close to home during the pandemic. I have it 4 stars because the ending kinda didn’t seem to match the rest of the book... but I won’t spoil it!

good book, not earth shaking.

the story was okay, the characters were not as good as in her other works. I still recommend this book though as the story is timely

Captivating story, until the end

I enjoyed Afterland. It was a compelling and captivating listen until the end when it seemed to run out of steam. The ending wrapped up too quickly and a bit unrealistically. After chasing Cole and Miles across country for so long, it’s hard to believe that Billie wouldn’t know how to shoot a gun, especially since the gun had already gone off when it hit the ground or that such a hardened thug like Zora would go down so easily from a punch to the vagina. And what was the surprise they saw when Sister Generosity took off her clothes?

Although the narrators ap problems with some “American” pronunciations, I liked the energy and variety of voices she brought to the performance.

I think I would have preferred they went back to the Nuns, but I liked the “mama bear” protectiveness of Cole. Overall an entertaining listen and so appropriate during the Coronavirus pandemic!