The Book of Flora by Meg Elison

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The Book of Flora by Meg Elison



And now we have the very last book in the Road to Nowhere series. It has been quite the ride, journey and experience. This review will hold spoilers for the first two books, but I will try my best not to spoil this last book in this review.

                It has been over one hundred years since the Dying has taken place. And the army is on its way to Bambritch Island. The refugees have been pouring in. The leader, sometimes described as a man other times described as a woman, has been destroying cities, killing everyone including pregnant women all in the search for “frags”. Flora had heard of frags, people who can impregnate themselves and have living children, before but had always dismissed it as a myth. As the army comes closer, she reflects on the last 40 years in hopes of understanding why someone could have their sights set on Bambritch.
                The suspense was killing me throughout this book! We know that danger is coming but we also have absolutely no idea how Flora ended up on this island and where’s Eddy? Who is this living child Flora speaks of? All of these questions are answered throughout the book through narrative transitions in time. This was the best option for this book and Elison executes it very well. Flora tells her story in both the past and present through diary entries, with some chapters being told in third person. This book more than the other two, was rooted in the idea of evolution and how things evolve. How people and communities evolve to survive. How ideas evolve and persist. How morals change and evolve when they conveniently fit a narrative. How we as humans may one day physically evolve and adapt to survive. Each of these characters has to decide how they will then adapt and evolve with the changing conditions.               
I love that this series keeps pushing the envelope when it comes to the ways in which we discuss sexuality, gender, and a changing society. Elison takes so many different aspects and really dissects them from queer relationships, to polyamorous relationships, motherhood, transitioning. It was refreshing to read a book that discusses it so plainly. I am not queer so I can’t speak to how accurate these depictions are. I can only speak to my own experiences and I found her conversations around these topics to be very enlightening and informative and very individual. I love that this dystopian series that originally revolved around a woman trying to help other women survive grew into a series that explored sexuality and gender. I’ve never read a book that focused solely on those aspects in a dystopian and now that I have, it’s puzzling to me that there aren’t more books like this. What a way to end a series. Highly recommended.

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