My name’s Griz. My childhood wasn’t like yours. I’ve never had friends, and in my whole life I’ve not met enough people to play a game of football.

My parents told me how crowded the world used to be, but we were never lonely on our remote island. We had each other, and our dogs.

Then the thief came.

There may be no law left except what you make of it. But if you steal my dog, you can at least expect me to come after you.

Because if we aren’t loyal to the things we love, what’s the point?

I think I’m going to start off this review with a pretty dumb metaphor.

Yeah, I totally am. Bear with me.

You ever set out to make some food, something you know you love, but maybe have never tried making for yourself? And you just kind of wing it (no pun here) and don’t really follow a recipe of any kind, because you are dealing with all ingredients you know & love & have worked with in other ways. I had this experience sometime in the last year or so. I’m a HUGE fan of buffalo chicken…like, it’s one of my most favorite things in the world, in any format…wings, pizza, sandwiches, chips, and of course nachos (nachos are another obsession of mine). So one night I said “fuck it I’m making buffalo chicken nachos”, as one does.

I had everything I needed to make these fucking badass nachos! Chips & cheddar cheese & blue cheese & chicken & buffalo sauce & scallions & & &…and then they turned out…just ok. Not bad, but not really spectacular in any one way.

That’s a bit what A Boy and His Dog at the End of the World felt like for me. It had so many elements that I fucking adore:

-Post-apocalyptic story? Check.

-Young protagonist on an adventure, discovering more about their world? Check.

-Published by Orbit? Check!!

-Dogs?!? Oh my god, it’s a post-apocalyptic story published by Orbit and there are DOGS and that fucking title had me almost in tears when I first heard it…

And…I liked this book. I really did. It just wasn’t the fucking gut-punch of emotions that I was anticipating, and fell short of my expectations. Which surprised me so damn much, because of course I wanted to love this with my whole heart.

This is the story of Griz, a young boy who lives with his family on a small island off the coast of what was once Scotland. When we meet Griz, we’re already pretty far along in this new world, which was actually one of my favorite aspects of the story. What’s referred to as the “Gelding” and the subsequent “Baby Bust”, (where for the most part, people are no longer able to conceive…the percentages of people who can conceive are minuscule, which has decimated the earth’s population) happened a couple generations back, so really none of these characters have any memory of “before”. Anything they know about our world has been pieced together by observation, scavenging, books…again, I really dug this aspect of the book.

Griz’s family struggles to survive, and they have great tragedy in their past. But they get by, and have developed a way of life that works for them, alone on their island.

But then one day, a mysterious stranger sails into their harbor & changes the course of Griz’s life in dramatic & dangerous ways. Much adventure & exploration follows, as this stranger, Brand, makes off with one of Griz’s dogs.

And here’s where I already felt a slight disconnect to the story. Things happen so quickly at the beginning of the novel, and so while I understand Griz’s motivation for risking everything for his dog (BECAUSE DOGS), I feel like everything that follows in this book would’ve been more impactful if we had spent some more time with Griz & his dogs, Jip & Jess. I felt like there was no relationship established between them all, and so I just didn’t feel it.

One of the other issues I had was like…what I’m thinking of as DUN DUN DUNNNNN moments? I feel like Stephen King does this really well, but maybe once or twice per book (if at all), where he literally tells you the REALLY BAD AWFUL THING that’s gonna happen, and now you just sweat it out waiting for the moment. You know it’s coming, but not really how. I think there were too many of these moments in A Boy and His Dog at the End of the World, and it grated on me a bit. And they are frequently at the end of chapters, like this one:

“Forewarned is not always forearmed. Sometimes you spend so much effort looking out for the trap you know is there that you miss the other one you didn’t know about.”

DUN DUN DUNNNNNN!!!

The story is told in the first person, with Griz writing down the details of his adventure to…someone. And while he’s possessed of a great sense of curiosity, and also a book lover (bonus points!), I guess I ultimately found Griz to be a bit…dull? Fuck, I don’t know. I’m beating myself up over this one because I wanted this story to break my fucking heart into bits, and it just didn’t. There were also what I perceived to be a couple teensy plot holes towards the end that really bugged the shit out of me!

For one reason or another, this one just didn’t resonate all the way with me. I appreciated some of the more unique elements here, as far as things in the post-apocalyptic genre go, but I really wasn’t able to connect with this story in the ways I had hoped to. Of course YMMV, I was just left wanting something…more.

Thank you so much to Orbit for sending me a copy!! A Boy and His Dog at the End of the World releases April 23rd!