Name: Jo H's review of Manna City by Geoffrey Pierce
Item: Manna City
Rating: 1
Author: Jo H

Geoffrey Pierce

Nista is nine months pregnant, starving, and living in a cave. Her husband, Dane, thinks she's gone crazy. And the first time she heard the voice of her unborn child, she thought she'd gone crazy, too. But the child has told her too many things, shown her too many things that have come to pass. She knows...someone is coming to usher them away from their isolated purgatory. Someone is coming to lead them through the unforgiving desert - teeming with lawless killers and savage beasts - to the last bastion of civilization, a mythical land of plenty called Manna City.

Manna City

Jo H

OK, so MAJOR dissenting view here, but WTF did I just read? 

Despite my love for dystopian/post-apocalyptic stories of many different types, this is not a type that I am into... If I never read another book where people are drinking piss again (I kid you not), it will still be too soon... my stomach is still roiling from it. 'Realistic' or not (which I crave big time in most of my books), given the desperate survivalist circumstances, I don't need that, so maybe this is a lesson for me to steer clear of the desperate mad-max in the desert level vibes next time. 

And what's up with all the 'creatures'? Did they not have enough to contend with without them and wherever/whenever they came from? Needless to say the worldbuilding was almost non-existent so nothing about the circumstances made any sense to me given I had no context to how this world, wherever and whenever it may be, and how these people ended up as they did. Some people like that vagueness, I tend not to most of the time.

And what about the baby at the end??? Maybe I'm just a thicko who is missing a giant trick here by not picking up on some über-intelligent allegory throughout this whole book, but so be it.

Also, it's a typical anti-hero (antagonist... villain?) He-Man and (disabled and cowardly doubting thomas) The Weakling storyline where the weakling dies in a valiant attempt to be brave near the end of the book and he-man saves the day (metaphorically and literally) at the actual end of the book. It reeks of self insert fantasy IMO with a side plot of 'kill the disabled one' trope. Maybe I'm reading too much into it where I 'shouldn't' be and not enough where I 'should', but that is my takeaway.

Competent writing or not, I need to appreciate something about the plot or the characters, or at the very least the atmosphere/world to enjoy a book and this one failed me at each turn. It's not often I regret a book, even the ones I didn't particular enjoy but this is one occasion I did. Thank heavens it was just a KU pick, and a short one, that I did not spend money on. KU has many absolute gems, and IMO opinion this book is not one of them.

Jo H &
Manna City by Geoffrey Pierce

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Jo H &
Manna City by Geoffrey Pierce