PositiveThe New York Times Book ReviewThe opening flits among the characters, but once the mentally ill but well-meaning Karen shows up, the novel ignites ... Ruta deeply sympathizes with the damaged and their worlds ... Despite the heavy subject matter, comic moments leaven the book ... There’s little mention of fault, and it’s an unexpected relief not to have venal and irrational heads of state quarreling over their red phones ... Instead of staging a mass die-off from flu as Emily St. John Mandel brilliantly imagined in Station Eleven, Ruta is realistic: There are no scrambles to a shelter, no messy survivors, no lingering horrors. \'A world … that never ends is even scarier,\' Kurt protests. Happy Last Day.
Jennifer Clement
PositiveThe New York Times Book ReviewClement’s turn to fiction is oddly dreamy for such a topic, as if to suggest the self-delusion of the real-life actors involved ... Once the bond between mother and daughter comes apart, Pearl is swept into the gun trade. With the \'souls of animals and the souls of people\' emanating from the guns all around her, she hears a song of praise: \'Pearl, Pearl, Pearl in congratulation.\' Her complicity with the violence seems eerily unconscious, mirroring America’s unnatural inability to admit to the grave consequences of unchecked gun proliferation.
