In a Perfect World by Laura Kasischke

I received this book from Book Club Girl's Blog, and read it in preparation for an online book club discussion scheduled for next week. It was OK, not great. I read it quickly and was interested in the story the entire time. What was disappointing was that it relied heavily on familiar archetypes for characters: a widowed pilot with three children who marries a flight attendant anxious for a family. She has a snarky mother, he has a bratty teenage daughter and a cute 6-year-old son. You could probably write the general narrative of the book just based on that description.

There was, thankfully, a large component of the book that was not predictable. In the backdrop early in the book, an epidemic of "Phoenix Flu" spreads across America. Initially, it seems to have the severity of an H1N1-like disease, then starts to impact America sharply. As it becomes more serious, Americans are banned from most other countries, complicating the pilot's ability to fly commerically. Then parts of the healthcare system and infrastructure begin to break down; certain celebrities die from Phoenix Flu. And it continues to debilitate the country.

This twist was fascinating because it was a woman's point of view on the anarchic demise of a society. Most stories like this, classically A Canticle for Leibowitz and modernly The Road or Oryx and Crake, take a masculine point of view with fighting, violence, and anger. While the protagonist in this book certainly fights for survival with her family, she also fights for emotional stability. She describes her reaction to the increasingly desperate situations she faces practically and introspectively, but also shares moments of grief and pain and sadness that I don't see in the other pieces. Her desire for connection and satisfaction of spitirual needs is much more present than in the masculine equivalents.

I was appreciative of this alternate point of view, but it didn't overcome my objections to the book: the cliches were too prominent and the plot too predictable. A decent airplane read, though if the guy next to you starts to cough, you'll want to switch to Sky Mall.