If you're looking for a book to shine a light on what our world could be if this pandemic a little bit different and how everything could be much much worse -- look no further than The Down Days. The Down Days is set in a world we could imagine if this virus were faster and more aggressive, if this pandemic were handled worse by our governments, and if whole countries were cordoned off from each other, their citizens left to fend for themselves without aid from the outside world. Suffice to say, the setting and near-future world building of The Down Days is deep and extremely realistic in our current climate.

However, the one thing that held me up and made The Down Days difficult for me to get into was the short chapters from a variety of POV characters. I gravitate toward character-driven stories and am grabbed most by the character motivations, which I found lacking and at times intentionally obscured by too-vague references to characters we've already met. As I was able to better grasp the characters, the story came to life more for me, so I would have loved that to come a bit sooner.

*eARC provided by NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.*

Ilze Hugo's work is a unique mix of apocalyptic fiction, surrealism, and other-worldly mysticism all rolled into one neat package. The story is told from the viewpoint of several narrators such as a young girl, a hair trader, a dead retriever. The way Hugo melds the different narrative POVs with the plot of the novel is something many authors fail to achieve successfully, yet she didn't have any glaring parts that threw off the readability of the story. The use of visual language brings to life sick town and its inhabitants. Overall, I would say this is a successful first novel.
I admit this book took me a few tries to get into, but that may just be because there is a current global pandemic that could have eerily twisted this work of fiction into a jagged mirror of reality.

I would recommend this book to anyone that enjoys dystopian fiction, a good story, or mystery.
Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for the DARC of this work in exchange for my honest review.

Seven years ago, the Laughing sickness appeared in Sick Town. Basically abandoned, with no outside governments or organizations appearing to provide possible supplies, cures, or vaccines, and has only a limited connection to the world outside, which seems to be spared the disease. Now quarantined, residents must wear masks and gloves, submit to daily medical checks, and acclimate to a city with a crippled supply chain and an unreliable government where taxis now transport the dead. It’s a city where people have developed new rituals. No one wants to shake hands, so the elbow bump came into fashion, and polite smiles have disappeared since mouths are behind masks.

Tomorrow, a young orphan charged with protecting her brother Elliot, visits the old museum which has turned into a flea market. While shopping, someone has stolen him from his stroller. Faith, a former taxi driver, now a “dead collector,” is a truthologist in her spare time and agrees to help Tomorrow.

On the same day, Sans, a black market hustler, spots his dream woman, and he is so enamored, he implores his employee, Lucky, to make a drop for him. Not only does the woman disappear, Lucky never delivers the payment, and Sans’s business partners will demand their due.

In the following week, the two stories intertwine as Faith and Sans independently encounter a Sin-Eater, an underground librarian, a hacker who provides information from outside the city, and the caretaker of a strange convent that fetishizes hair. Meanwhile, the residents of Sick City become increasingly malcontent as rumors and conspiracy theories as well as a rash of hallucinations proliferate.

Faith wonders if she can really help Tomorrow find Elliot—or if Elliot is just a vision—and if the quest will take her too deep into the past to recover while Sans struggles with morality and mortality.

Reading The Down Days by Ilze Hugo during quarantine is certainly strange and uncomfortably realistic. For example, masks as fashion accessories were mentioned, and it was both funny and tragic when a charlatan at the market sold a bleach solution to drink as a cure for the Laughing disease. Not concerned with the outbreak itself, the novel is more interested in what happens in a contained city and the long-term effects on the residents. I thought the world building was fabulous, and I was completely engrossed. The point of view shifts between several characters which seems important in this book partly to present a larger view of the city and partly because no one is completely reliable, and multiple perspectives provides some triangulation. Confident, playful, and insightful, the writing style is fabulous, and I was amazed that the novel is Hugo’s book-length debut.

I do wish, though, there was more to the ending. It felt a little rushed to me, and I’m not sure how certain events described in the epilogue came to be. The resolution for the primary characters, though, was satisfying, and I enjoyed reading the book.

Ilze Hugo’s debut novel follows a handful of residents of a South African city as they and the city deal with the aftermath of the Laughter, a pandemic that hit seven years ago, and is still sending citizens to their graves, grinning.

While I enjoyed The Down Days, the parallels between our lived reality and the world Hugo has built are eerie, and so this book may not be for everyone in this strange moment we are living in.

Novels told from multiple points-of-view are tricky to master, but Hugo for the most part gives each character their own voice. The manner in which Hugo weaves the characters’ stories together was a delight to read. This is one of the debuts I was looking forward to the most, and it did not disappoint!

This is a bizarre and timely book about what happens after the pandemic has wreaked havoc. I mean, I won't pretend it didn't scare the hell out of me to think that the world could be like this for the better part of a decade, but alas. In this book, set in South Africa (which yes please, more of this!), one of the symptoms of the disease is uncontrollable laughter. The bananas part is, people in our timeline are vilified for coughing, much like these folks are for laughing. Obviously, laughing in public is not allowed. People wear masks everywhere. People attend online funerals only. There are random temperature checks. Honestly it hits really close to home.

Luckily, this book doesn't focus on the plague itself so much as the aftermath. It follows several characters (maybe one or two too many, if I am being totally honest, but it wasn't a dealbreaker, just... a thing) throughout their new normals. Gone are the jobs of yesteryear, they now do things like ferry bodies. Engage in fight clubs. Steal and sell hair. Look, when the apocalypse comes to town, you sometimes have to find some... inventive ways to make a dollar. And that's the whole thing- the severity in which life has changed, and how these people have come to adapt when the only choices are adapt or die.

I really can't say much about the plot, because it takes some turns I did not see coming and obviously I have no plans to spoil them. I will say that it is a slower paced book, definitely dealing more with the character development and world-building than action. I loved all the little South African details that are seamlessly woven into the story. I had to look some of them up (though there is a glossary at the end in the eARC) and I absolutely loved falling into this culture. By the end, I even had a pretty good idea of the phrases and such without having to look them up!

Bottom Line: An incredibly timely look at what happens to a society after the end of the world. It asks all kinds of questions, and definitely provides a lot of character exploration. Perhaps you'll find some of your own reactions in some of these characters.

I review books in order of publication date. It's my way of trying to stay ahead. When this one was moved up 2 months I wondered what had happened all of a sudden. Then I started reading. Outbreak, masks, people who cart off the dead...OK, I get it. The change of timing leaves me feeling of two minds. Maybe in July this would be all behind us and reading about a small case of mass hysteria turning into a deadly disease and still going strong seven years later would be a little less troubling. Isn't that our nightmare right now? This distancing not ending but becoming so routine that it is engrained in every part of our social structure?

The idea is great. Laugh until you die. Based loosely on real events of mass hysteria, the question is asked, What if the hysteria had never ended? This is how society would change. Or at least one possibility.

I loved that the book jumped right in. We are just in a world in which it is normal for people to die laughing. It is a job to collect the dead. There is a dehumanizing nickname for the victims of the plague. Grinners. I mean, cmon,. It was just right there. It's not as silly as it sounds. It's sad and disturbing to describe piles of dead and orphans running the streets in cutesy masks trying to find enough to eat.

We are immediately thrown in with character after character. You get a little of each as if they are being rationed. Hustlers, drug dealers, dead collectors, wayward children, and of course Tomorrow. The center of it all. The mystery. Where did her brother go? Did she ever really have a toddler in the first place.

All in all, a good ride with a subject matter that is both outrageous and just a tiny bit close to home right now.

Thank you to the publishers and NetGalley for an eARC in exchange for an honest review.

The Down Days follows a group of people(no really, there's like 12 POV's to keep straight here) in a post-pandemic and quarantined section of South Africa. We see a sin eater, a security guard with a hyena, a dead collector, a drug pusher(only it's not the normal cargo), a junkie, and other characters I'm sure I'm forgetting as they help a young girl look for her brother she claims has been taken. However there is no evidence a toddler was with her when she claims her brother was taken, leading to doubts that a brother ever existed

This book was 100% not my cup of tea. There were so many POV's and it because super choppy and disruptive to the story when you change POV every chapter and the majority of chapters are only a few pages. This really killed the story(or lack there of) since the author spent so much time trying to make sure you knew the characters were near each other and crossing paths without knowing it rather than developing a great story. The pandemic explanation was almost non existent, and once a big reveal came it was just meh at best since you hadn't really bonded with any character at all. This story could easily be a short story at about 75-100 pages and be way better because a plot would be visible.

Overall, I'm withholding giving this a one star simply because the concept of the story and the twists the author was attempting deserve more. If you can handle a chopped up story with 2500 characters than this one is the book for you. Otherwise, I would sit this one out.

Summary: As a deadly laughing disease grips a city in South Africa, decimating the population, it is no small thing to say that strange events are on the rise. But for Sans, a seasoned ponytail thief, and Faith, a professional dead collector and amateur “truthologist”, their lives are about to get a whole lot more complicated, especially after a series of child abductions and ghost sightings have them crossing paths on their way to the truth. Is the government to blame? A corruption of the spirit? Or is it simply a case of mass hysteria, bolstered by superstition and paranoia? Either way you look at it, there is something suspicious going on in Sick City—and it's no laughing matter.

Review: While the timing of Ilza Hugo’s The Down Days will likely lead to a fair share of attention, there is a great deal to take away from this debut novel other than the ways it parallels the extraordinary times we are currently living in. This supernaturally charged dystopia, fueled by noir-like tones and a pulp mystery format, paints a poignant picture of the class division that plagues South Africa, magnifying it through the lens of a pandemic. With sickness and death the new norm, an abstract examination of the tenets of grief becomes one of the novel's most persuasive themes, laying the groundwork to explore the frightening—and occasionally beautiful—ways that tragedy can transform a city and its people. Under these circumstances, it is not long before the very meaning of death becomes an unstable construct, and Hugo is given free reign to traverse the themes of this existential playground unabashed.

This crossover of science, tradition, and the supernatural molds together to create something wholly unique, where reality is as diverse as the people who are experiencing it, and the lines between the past and the present are unforgivingly blurred by the paranormal. With an eclectic cast of characters for support, all of whom are continuously crossing paths within the chaos, this genre-bending tale of both the lost and the found weaves together a colorful, intricate storyline that keeps you happily guessing throughout, and pleasantly surprised at its conclusion. This approach goes to show that, despite its roots in science fiction and urban fantasy, it is the lean toward a procedural, hardboiled detective novel that really showcases the novel's originality, giving it a noteworthy and persuasive flair.

Verdict: Ilza Hugo’s The Down Days is an ambitious and timely tale that certainly reads well during a quarantine, but will also, undoubtedly, remain valuable long after its most obvious elements have left the news feed. Whichever aspect of this multifaceted novel appeals to you the most, whether it be the engrossing story, glowing characters, or time-tested story format, this strange but familiar world will continue to reveal new and intriguing layers every step of the way.

This debut novel by author Ilze Hugo completely blew away any expectations I may have had going in. With a multiple POV character driven narrative, this vibrant cast of characters will stay with me for a long time.

Post apocalyptic sci-fi, a dash of mystery, and more than a pinch of paranormal fantasy, this novel ticked all of my favorite genre boxes in one fail swoop.

An African city has been quarantined after the outbreak of the Laughter; people are infected with the giggles and the laugh uncontrollable until death.

Such an interesting unique concept, I never thought about how much laughter could be something to fear. This book follows many perspectives of the people within the city; a young girl searching for her brother, a truthologist solving puzzles, a man looking for a lost bag of money and his gang partner who skipped out on him, a mysterious woman with unicorn hair, and a slew of other characters. At first I was a little confused about whose perspective I was in and just what was going on but you just really need to let it go and enjoy the ride. People are paranoid, panicking, hallucinating, experiencing loss, and trying to make sense of their new world. It was so bizarre and unique and I loved it! It was also such a timely book to be reading right now. The characters having trouble finding essential items at the grocery store, everyone wearing masks, public deciding whether to stay home or rise up and protest, and officials determine who’s sick based on a thermometer reading. I enjoyed the Science Fiction/Magical elements and the search of the old book was a great addition to the plot. I certainly enjoyed the second half of the book a lot more than the first book, more high action and I really enjoyed the way all the characters ended up being intertwined in each other's lives at the end.

Thank you to NetGalley for providing a free copy in exchange for an honest review.

Timing is everything! I would have liked this book no matter when I read it, but right now locked inside my house added a layer of verisimilitude that would have been lacking at another time. How do we survive when the world is collapsing? What can we hold onto when everything is disappearing? Family is one answer and if we lose our own we can build another. Great book with a sense of hope woven throughout. Highly recommend!

Rating: 3 stars

Thank you to the publisher for the the ARC given through NetGalley for an honest review. All opinions are my own.

The Down Days was not an easy story for me to read at this moment due the pandemic that our characters are trying to survive and sadly so are we.
But....overall it was an interesting story. It’s told from several POVs but it was easy to follow. These characters are living day by day with fear. Fear of the disease, the government and the religious. They do their best but at times the choices they made come back to haunt them. There are some paranormal elements towards the end of the story that I was left a little confused with.
This is the first book I read by this author and I did like her style of writing. I look forwards to more of her work.

A really fascinating read, particularly for these times. I won't lie, I read this one slower than I usually would because it was so immersive that my anxiety kick up. It was just too real! It may have been due to this (which is totally on me because the novel is wonderfully written) but it took me a while to connect to the characters. Faith was the first one I really meshed with and ended up being my favorite of the several POVs because I liked the weight and history to her having lived before the Laughter came.

Once I hit the halfway mark, I was enjoying it more as more of the fantastical/supernatural side of the plot came out. I often highlighted lines simply for how awesome the prose was. No words are wasted in this story and you can feel the impact of them on a visceral level. You get to experience a lot of different characters throughout the story. I liked how characters would dip in and out of being the POV for chapters based on their involvement in the plot, which is a nice take on the more traditional 'here's the four POVs you'll always see' that many novels take.

In the end, I liked it. I probably missed a lot of the symbolism (though the repetition of hyenas was a great touch) but in the end it's a story about people and how they cope/overcome a crazy situation. It's a lesson we could all use right now.

Note: I received a free Kindle edition of this book via NetGalley in exchange for the honest review above. I would like to thank NetGalley, the publisher Gallery Books, and the author Ilze Hugo for the opportunity to do so.

A great mix of dystopic fiction and magic realism, it kept me hooked till the end.
I liked the world building, the well thought cast of characters and the excellent storytelling.
I look forward to reading other stories by this author.
Recommended.
Many thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for this ARC, all opinions are mine.

First off, that cover is on point. I love it!

This is a very imaginative dystopian with a pinch of magical realism. Not unlike what's going in our current days, Down Days "virus" is laughter. It's literally killing people, an epidemic where you have to take the same precautions as we do right now.
Though very imaginative, this book does have a lot going on without a lot of backstory. It gets right into everything at the get go, which at times can make things a bit confusing.
Overall, this was a good book. While I didn't love it, I did like it, and it kept me pretty engaged.

This is OK. It has an interesting premise, but didn't quite come together as well as it could have. The author has a good imagination, and told in a creative way. It hold my attention throughout, however.

I really appreciate the ARC for review!!

Interesting premise, particularly as we are going through COVID-19. In a quarantined city in South Africa, the Laughter is killing people. Masks, hand washing, and dead-collectors are part of everyday life. In this place the line between the dead and the living is thinning (but not in a zombie way). People are seeing ghosts. Is it real or is it another symptom of the Laughter?
The book focuses on a handful of characters as they navigate their daily lives and search for what they have lost: money, a baby brother, a son. At 355 pages I thought the story was weighted way too heavily in the front end and didn't really clear things up in the climax and post-climax.

This book dives right into the main plot points with very little background or build up. Usually jumping right into the drama creates a book you get sucked into quickly, but The Down Days is too imaginative for this. I think a little more explanation or backstory would have made the book a little less confusing and a little more captivating. That ontop of all the abstract metaphors made a world in which I was unable to connect too.

This is easily my favorite cover of any book that I have reviewed this year. That being said, I just could not finish this book. It was a very confusing read and I just got way too lost in the story. I really wanted to like this book and it started off with such a strong premise. However, as I said, it just got too confusing so I had to sadly put it down.

Wayyyyyy to much going on in this book. It started out ok, but got to be a bit like Adventure Time on Cartoon Network, but without the prose. It tries too hard to work hard.