Life in its mystery unfolds. The isolation yes, but oh, the learning, the discovery of a better self. I was mystified on the accuracy of a book written over a course of many years and to what we see looking out our window in our lives today.
What this book will give you is the proof of our choices, how each of our repeated acts compound and sometimes leave us on a path with no other choice. Would it be easier or more difficult to change if we are faced with just a few remaining days?
This book is not a downer, it sits with a pandemic in the background but it is a book about hope.

Thank you #NetGalley and # PenguinRandomHouseCanada for the opportunity to review #SongsfortheEndoftheWorld

Imagine, it’s 2020, a pandemic is sweeping the world, a ‘Novel Coronavirus’. It is suspected that a young Asian girl working in a New York restaurant has brought the virus to America. Lockdowns, panic buying, shortages of PPE and respirators, anti-Asian sentiment. But just a minute, this novel was written between 2013 and 2019!

The story follows a group of people as they find themselves dealing with the pandemic, shifting back and forth through time, the stories of the characters intersect as we learn more about their different solutions to cope with the crisis.

Not your typical dystopian pandemic novel, Songs for the End of the World explores how such a pandemic affects our relationships to family and friends and what we can do to step up and help our fellow man. It offers a more hopeful vision of how humanity can manage such earth-shattering events.

Thanks to Net Galley for providing an ARC of this great read.

I found it amazing that this book was started six years before COVID-19 because it eerily mirrors so much of what the world is going through right now! In the book, one of the characters is an author who writes a book about a deadly global virus that ends up coming true...just like Saleema Nawaz wrote this book which also ended up coming true. I liked how the characters all seem to be connected somehow, whether by purpose or coincidence. I found this an effective way of showing how a person conducts themselves in a pandemic world really can affect everyone they come in contact with.

I found myself really getting into the various character threads for the first half of the book, and couldn't wait for their stories to pick up again. However, when, or if, they did, those characters seemed like different people and I found myself disappointed. Obviously people change through time or circumstances but I felt like I missed out on it. I also found myself wanting more closure for a couple of characters at the end.

I would like to thank NetGalley and the publisher for allowing me to read an advanced copy of this book in exchange for my honest review. #NetGalley #SongsfortheEndoftheWorld

Songs for the End of the World is eerily prolific of what is happening in the world today. Saleema’s use of telling the story from multiple characters that are linked is great. This is a hard one to put down, but shows that humanity can come together during difficult times. It gives us readers hope for the world we are finding ourselves currently living in. This story will be linked with COVID-19 for years to come.
#songsfortheendoftheworld, #netgalley, #indigoemployee

Thanks to Netgalley and Penguin random house Canada for my copy. 3.5*

Ok so maybe the wrong time to read a book about a global pandemic maybe! It is hard to believe this was written over a 6 year period before Covid 19.

Although I enjoyed the narrative and the author's style of writing I found the rather large ensemble cast of characters to be confusing. When I have to keep turning back pages to marry the characters together it spoils my enjoyment.

Although the book centres around a pandemic the story is really of human relationships and the connections we have to one another.

3.5 stars. Reading this was a bit of a trip, as it's about a novel coronavirus and the ensuing pandemic. It's less about the pandemic itself, though, and moreso about relationships. It felt a little bit aimless, though, and I felt like a lot of the stories never got much of an ending.

Thank you to the publisher for a copy of this book via netgalley!

So...reading this book was basically reading about how covid unfolded. The fact that the author did so much research into this book way before its time is amazing. Perhaps being smack in a middle of a pandemic, perhaps the additional creepy factor this book projects due to more real than fiction current reality, but I enjoyed it. Enjoyed reading how (fictional) humans act during a pandemic How it touches them differently, yet how we are all connected by it. Or more by the fear of it.

This prophetic book was written about a coronavirus during the time frame of 2013 and 2019. It foretells the effects of a pandemic on a number of anxious, assorted people. Now in 2020, this is the world we are all presently living in. It focuses on a number of people with past or vague connections, or with those now living in uneasy, broken, or dysfunctional relationships.

There is no doubt that the author is a talented writer and researcher with great insight into her character's personalities. The scope and structure of the book were confusing and a distraction for me.
I regret I was unable to maintain interest in the various characters and their relationships and connections. I wanted to know more about the disease and the efforts of the government agencies to control it.

I believe an equally prophetic book 'The End of October' I previously read lessened the impact of 'Songs For the End of the World' for me. That book also featured a pandemic that started in Asia and soon spread worldwide. It featured an explanation of coronaviruses, historic pandemics, its mismanagement by government agencies, the search for an effective vaccine, and a strong and interesting lead character, and the devastation caused by the disease.

In this book, the number of characters and their reactions, without learning much of what was happening outside their individual lives did not engage me. I regret did not hold my interest. With so many characters to keep straight, I failed to become interested or to like any of them. The search for the woman who was rumoured to be the cause of the Aramis infection starting in New York was unfortunate.

I wish to thank NetGalley and Penguin Random House Canada for the opportunity to read this book in return for an honest review. 2.5 stars rounded up to 3.
I do think that this could be a thought-provoking book that many readers will enjoy.

I don't really know what to say about this book. I was a little unsure about reading it, since the subject matter hits a little close to home right now. However, it is more than a book about a pandemic. It's a book about human connections and disconnections and how those come to the forefront during a crisis. It's about family, friends, grief, loss and hope. I am glad I read it, and I would recommend it

Special thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for a free, electronic ARC of this novel received in exchange for an honest review.
“Songs for the End of the World” by Saleema Nawaz, the award-winning author of “Bone and Bread”, is a story of a life-changing virus outbreak, and a small group of people who become intimately tied together in their journey to survive.
The author claims this story was started in 2013, and she used the Spanish flu and the Swine flu as her basis of research (who am I to argue with her?) but for a book that is published in August of 2020, it has a lot of eerie similarities to our current life as we know it. The virus being battled in the novel is entitled ARAMIS (Acute Respiratory and Muscular Inflammatory Syndrome) and it is all-inclusive, infecting everyone (including children), leading to mass deaths. Forced by the WHO to wear masks, restrict travel, and quarantine for twenty-one days, no one on Earth is safe and everyone is at risk. Freaky, right?
The story is beautifully written; Nawaz has a way with descriptive language that is completely immersive and utterly powerful. The novel is written from the perspectives of many characters, across different time periods and at first, it felt a little discombobulated, as if the novel was instead a collection of short stories where there was some similarities between the tales but no connection. However, as I read on, the appeal of storytelling in this manner became apparent.
Each and every character in the novel is connected loosely to each other, which provokes a lot of deep questions about humanity as a whole. Nawaz has an interesting way of putting a “positive spin” on a society-altering virus (if a positive spin can be put on at all!), encouraging tough thoughts and allowing her readers to take a second look at their lives, their loved ones, and what really matters.
I didn’t really get into this novel until about halfway through, as mentioned, and the parallels with society as it is now was completely terrifying for me (I had a very hard time hearing about a novel “coronavirus” infiltrating the planet and trying to read it as fiction- oh, what a world we live in!) but “Songs for the End of the World” definitely deserves all of the praise and attention it has been getting.

I have never read a book that so closely matched what was occurring in the world until today. This book contains a cast of characters that are entertained through family, school, work and marriage. Each person’s life evolves through the chapters as the world faces a highly contagious virus. We see how various personalities deal with the fear and reality of a pandemic. We see their unique views on life and love and how much some people change while others stay true to their original personalities. The author established realistic characters which helped make their stories believable. This book covers a relatively short period of time but we see how the things that are deemed important in life change for each character. This book is a great read for today’s world and for the years to come. Our way of living changed in 2020 and this book Shows that this change is worldwide. My only problem was with the ending. That I would have like to have been different. Thanks to NetGalley and a Penguin Random House Canada for the opportunity to read this book.

It goes without saying (and yet I am saying it) that this novel mirrors what is currently happening with Covid-19 in such an eerie manner. A corona virus originating in Asia takes hold of New York City and spreads around the world in a very short period of time. People are asked to use personal protective equipment and quarantine if they think they have been exposed. A writer (in the story) has written a pandemic story which gains momentum during the actual pandemic.

In writing this review I am trying to imagine how I would receive this book were it published pre-pandemic. I hope that I would see the altruistic aspects of the story and its character development as its strength. Would I be so focussed on the symptoms of the virus and how it spreads so quickly? If not for having lived this reality, I believe this book would have been considered dystopian in nature and I may not have appreciated the loyalty and solidarity among the people who could so easily have been infected.

Songs for the End of the World weaves through many intersecting storylines and characters. At times I thought there were too many seemingly coincidental relationships but I enjoyed all the storylines. The novel was optimistic in the sense that people looked out for others and civil unrest was limited. The story does leave room for a different outcome as a possibility in the first and final scene.

If you are finding yourself able to read pandemic stories during our current times then I would recommend this book. It also might be an interesting book to revisit in a few years when we are hopefully in a better place.

Thank you to @netgalley and @penguinrandomhouseca for an advance reader’s copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. This book is now available.

I might be in the minority of people who think picking up a pandemic book during a pandemic sounds like a fun idea - and to be fair, there were times that the plot points felt a little too close to home and I had to take a breather. But this book was the perfect reminder that in times of struggle, it is our connections and relationships that are most important and help us weather the storm.

This was a book about the characters more than it was about the pandemic and the characters were so brilliantly crafted. I found myself invested in every single one and couldn't wait to jump back into their perspective even while I was becoming engrossed with a new character. I find that when the point of view jumps from character to character, I prefer some characters over others. That wasn't the case here - I wanted to follow every person, learn more about their lives and their futures. And the way that they were all connected to each other in some way or another was fascinating.

There were so many times while reading that I had to stop and remind myself that it was written before our current pandemic because some of the events really felt like they were pulled from our current headlines. It was incredibly well-researched, incredibly realistic but in a way that wasn't upsetting. It really was telling real stories of real people in a completely crazy situation, and by the time I had finished, I felt a sense of hope about our current pandemic rather than wariness or fear. There's a certain kind of magic in that, especially with everything going on around us.

I was very glad to have read this book when I did and will be recommending it to absolutely everyone!

It is indeed a strange experience to read this book about a pandemic when the world is presently in the grips of one. Apparently Salem Narwaz began to write this novel in 2013 and completed it in 2019, just in time for fiction to become reality. The story, therefore, becomes eerily prescient, the face masks, hand sanitizers, quarantine periods and crowded E.R's strangely familiar. A major difference is that thought the virus in the story is a coronavirus that attacks the respiratory system, its primary victims are children rather than the elderly.
What makes this such a great novel, however, is that it never falls into cliched dystopian imaginings or a doom-filled story of world apocalypse. Instead it takes its time to examine the interaction between a handful of seemingly disparate people who find themselves living through an unfolding catastrophe. These people all turn out to be connected in both direct and indirect ways, therefore their actions all impact on one another and their lives intersect in unexpected ways.
The publisher's blurb outlines the main characters: "Elliot is a first responder in New York, a man running from past failures and struggling to do the right thing. Emma is a pregnant singer preparing to headline a benefit concert for victims of the outbreak–all while questioning what kind of world her child is coming into. Owen is the philandering author of a bestselling plague novel with eerie similarities to the real-life pandemic. As fact and fiction begin to blur, he must decide whether his lifelong instinct for self-preservation has been worth the cost. A host of other characters chime in to tell their stories too.
Narwaz moves back and forth in time, carefully providing back-stories that establish exactly what motivations drive her characters and how much they stand to lose if society succumbs to the unrest that, in her own prophetic words from a recent interview, "is being primed for fear by the 24-hour news cycle and by politicians stoking divisiveness." Sound familiar?
This is such a wise and in-depth study of the human condition and how it either triumphs or fails in the face of impending disaster. Though some parts in the mid-section could have been trimmed a little, the story gradually picks up steam, making the final section so powerful and compelling I found it impossible to put the book down until I was finished.
Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for providing a free copy in exchange for an honest review.

This was one heartwarming and sad at the same time. The world is becoming difficult and dangerous. How will it all end. Loved it.

Ever read a book and get a serious case of deja vu? I definitely had that occur several times while reading Songs for the End of the World by Saleema Nawaz. Masks, social distancing, rationed food products – it all rings a little close for comfort given our current situation. Written between 2013-2019, the novel takes place during a global pandemic that occurs during the summer of 2020.

You might be asking yourself…”Is this author a time traveler? A Nostradamus? A psychic? All of the above?” Regardless, she is extremely skilled at her craft and I highly recommend checking out this novel.

From the publisher – This is the story of a handful of people who find themselves living through an unfolding catastrophe.

Elliot is a first responder in New York, a man running from past failures and struggling to do the right thing. Emma is a pregnant singer preparing to headline a benefit concert for victims of the outbreak–all while questioning what kind of world her child is coming into. Owen is the author of a bestselling plague novel with eerie similarities to the real-life pandemic. As fact and fiction begin to blur, he must decide whether his lifelong instinct for self-preservation has been worth the cost.
As the novel moves back and forth in time, we discover these characters’ ties to one another–and to those whose lives intersect with theirs–in an extraordinary web of connection and community that reveals none of us is ever truly alone. Linking them all is the mystery of the so-called ARAMIS Girl, a woman at the first infection site whose unknown identity and whereabouts cause a furor.

Written and revised between 2013 and 2019, and brilliantly told by an unforgettable chorus of voices, Saleema Nawaz’s glittering novel is a moving and hopeful meditation on what we owe to ourselves and to each other. It reminds us that disaster can bring out the best in people–and that coming together may be what saves us in the end.

This was a beautifully written story about the very core of humanity. How we deal with isolation, fear and pain, while continuing to hold on to hope and resiliency in the face of great adversity. The novel is much more than a disaster/pandemic story, reminding the reader of the importance of human connection. It reminds me a lot of Emily St. John Mandel’s novel, Station Eleven, another expertly crafted character study set during a global catastrophe.

Nawaz creates an amazing cast of characters, weaving them together in creative and unique ways. The story reads like a “six degrees of separation” game, as each chapter serves to connect one person to the next. I thoroughly enjoyed Elliot’s character as I felt he had the most realistic and developed experience throughout the novel.

Though narrated by several different individuals,the plot remains easy to follow, which speaks to it’s strength and deepens the reader’s understanding of each character’s motives. The plot takes place both in the past and present, providing interesting context for the events leading up to the pandemic and further cementing the relationships between the characters.

I definitely recommend this novel if you are looking for your next great read.

Many thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for the review copy.

This book eerily mirrors our own current world situation. We follow a number of characters whose lives have been altered by a pandemic caused by a corona virus. We enter this world through snapshots, panics, news articles and the loneliness of quarantine and the subject matter is highly relatable. Not everyone will survive to the end and patient zero may not be who we think it is, but the message of this book is cautiously hopeful.

A timely novel surrounding the actions and relationships of a cast of characters amidst a pandemic. Nawaz has crafted and intriguing and well-written narrative with Songs for the End of the World. While her writing is superb, I didn't personally feel much difference in the voices of characters during their POV chapters. They had different personalities, motivations and backstories, but the writing that came through didn't differentiate them as much as I would have liked based on how different everyone was. I also felt like a lot of the flashback chapters didn't serve as much of a purpose as they could have. It linked all of the cast together, but other than some key relationships I didn't feel it contributed to the big picture of the story as it was often just a "these two knew each other" with little payoff in the present day.

Ultimately I did really enjoy the story and will definitely recommend it. Nawaz shares a story of humanity, and the story comes out with a strong message of hope and unity. While some may be discouraged from reading a pandemic story because it hits close to home, Songs for the End of the World is a story not just of sadness. While there will certainly be acts of self-preservation, we can band together to get through hardship.

Saleema Nawaz did her research! It was eerily unnerving to read Songs for the End of the World, a story about a novel coronavirus pandemic in the middle of a novel coronavirus pandemic. I can only imagine what the author must have experienced finishing her story only to have fiction spring into reality. The details mirroring an actual pandemic were spot on, but it is the relationships between the characters in this novel that bring it to life.

I was surprised to learn that the writing of this book took place before the Covid19 Pandemic. In fact, this book was begun six years ago.

SONGS FOR THE END OF THE WORLD centers around a coronavirus disease called ARAMIS which is eerily similar to COVID19. There are other things in this story that are extremely similar to what is happening in the world today.

In fact, one of the main characters is an author who had written  fictional account of a plague similar to ARAMIS. Little did Saleema Nawaz know that she was going to experience firsthand what her character went through.

The main difference between this book and other sci-fi / post apocalyptic /dystopian / speculative fiction novels is the outlook of the characters. What I mean by this is that in most of the books of this genre, the actions of the populace devolve into violence over the course of the story. In fact, in most post-apocalyptic books, the plague ends up being less dangerous than  the people.

In SONGS FOR THE END OF THE WORLD, the majority of the characters act for the good of society rather than simply taking care of themselves and their families. Of course, they do not take reckless risks, but they are somehow able to hang onto their humanity. This is a refreshingly optimistic view of how people act during a catastrophe.

Although I said this book is optimistic, don't think that every character is perfect; they are far from it. There are also characters that act like self righteous jerks, as well as a few characters you will want to smack upside of their head for how they behave. In short, just as in real life, there are good people, bad people, and people who fall somewhere in the middle.

I recommend this book to anyone who is looking for a unique science fiction novel with characters that are so relatable that you will feel like they are friends of yours by the end of the book.

I rate SONGS FOR THE END OF THE WORLD as 4 OUT OF 5 STARS ⭐⭐⭐⭐


*** Thank you to NetGalley for providing me with a free copy of this book. ***