A dystopian fiction book from author Hedgmon, The Flicker takes place a year after a sun "burst" (a flicker) has scorched the earth and killed most of the people and plant life. Two step sisters have survived, and are traveling through Appalachia into the south looking for one of the characters Native American elder grandmother. They have a dog and a baby with them, and come across other survivors as well as a group who is trying to dominate the supplies and people that have survived this event. There are LGBTQ+ elements, as well as the already mentioned dystopian theme. Friendship, family, and survival are all intertwined here, written in what is meant to be a conversational style (?) that had me confused from the start.
Sometimes I'll glance at other reader reviews about a book to see if my take on things was spot on or way off. A lot of readers seemed to like this, so please take that into account as well - I'm just one well-read dog, after all! But I did not find this fun to read, or easy to follow (mostly because the character slang/language/dialect was so uneven), and I had to make myself finish the story. I liked the overall idea, even though I don't read a lot of dystopian fiction, but I thought the author had a cool idea to build a story around. But the characters were often just mean to each other, and the language did not flow for me at all. If any of the thematic elements mentioned above interest you, give this a try, and perhaps you'll like it better than I did. I wanted to like it, but just didn't. I would have rather re-read a good dystopian book, like Shipbreaker (Paolo Bacigalupi), or even the City of Ember series. 3 paws. Can't wait to start another book!
