"let the president be civil. He can practice civility while I make my way to his door drenched in blood"

this gave me such strong The Road/ Station Eleven vibes mixed with themes of feminine rage and generational trauma. The plot abandoned me many times, but the vibes stayed devastating. I wasn't expecting the writing to be as compelling as it was, I read this in one sitting! Definitely a little hidden gem

Cataclysm was neither the post apocalyptic novel I was expecting or the one I’m used to reading. Set in a very near future USA, it is not at all your typical Armageddon tale. Cataclysm tells the story of a mother, only identified as The Woman, and her two sons, and how she clawed her way to a position of power in a post apocalyptic society. While that plot description may sound banal, it masks what is a powerfully written novel. Cataclysm is more a meditation on motherhood and the lengths a mother will go to protect her child, and uncontrolled rage and its ripple effects across generations. Told in a non linear and disjointed form in the style of journal entries (for the most part), it is a remarkable novel, despite its bleak tone.

If you’re looking for another generic book about the apocalypse, Cataclysm isn’t for you. If you want to read a highly original and challenging book, then you’ve come to the right place.

Many thanks to Spaceboy Books and to Netgalley for providing an ARC of Cataclysm, out 4/2/24.

This uses the post-apocalyptic elements perfectly for the horror genre. I thought this worked with the description, and I appreciated how well the journal entries were for this type of book. The characters felt like I knew them and was invested in what was happening to them. Tiffany Meuret writes a great story and makes characters that I cared about.

Sh*t moves fast in the apocalypse."

I finished this book early in the day & took the remaining afternoon to decompress...

Cataclysm is such an apt name for the story found within these pages.
The passages often leave you with a sense of disarray, heftiness, cynicism, and despondency.

I enjoyed, in the most unsettling way, the story told by Tiffany Meuret about a woman-a mother-a machine & the catastrophic possibilities of unchecked & unbidden rage found within.

I was not expecting to read this book & find such a deep reflection of my own intrusive thoughts & introspections as a mother & overall-average human being living in, but mostly questioning, today's time & current events.

Do not misunderstand, I felt a bit lost throughout the story, having to backtrack & reread for clarification on some occurrences. I am still left feeling unsure if I fully know what happened in this book. But I think that is part of the point, part of the intrigue.

The questions & concepts presented by Meuret (e.g. what defines a human/the elements of control/mothers are wired different-BEWARE!) allow for a true examination of self & our perceptions of the world we currently reside in.

"I have to keep my rage in a jar and use sparingly because it spoils to s*icide when exposed too long to air."

"All they had they squandered. How very human of them."

"Power is not exponential - it requires a target. Without one, it devours you whole."

Thanks to NetGalley, Spaceboy Books, & of course, Tiffany Meuret for this unusual, apocalyptic read. Pub Date 04.02.24

I read Cataclysm by Tiffany Meuret in 1 sitting. I think I held my breath the whole time...just kidding, but it felt like I did. This was by far the best indie book I've read in a long time. Thank you!

This is an epic journey that spans 100 or so years between a complete fallout scenario to sentient A.I. technology. It follows the origins of a warrior woman who rises to power using brute force and builds a community of survivors, all in the name of making sure her children are protected and survive in the world order.

She must have left some kind of mark on the world, as her journals are entered into a computer to decipher who she was and why she did the things she did. However, the AI in her image acts just as suspicious and tactical as the Woman herself used to.

This was a crazy original story. It was very well written with prose spanning from parental love for ones child, to lovers quarrel and madness setting in. It just about had everything.

Thank you to Netgalley, Tiffany Meuret and the publishing company for this ARC in exchange for my honest opinion.

**note I want to give this a 3.5 but I can’t.***

A Cataclysm has occurred in the USA and the result is a sudden deterioration of civil society across the country. Cities are now devolved into chaos and mob violence. Luckily you live in a suburb, at adistanced from the disorder, but now you must make the most important decision a parent will ever make and could even mean life-or-death for you and your loved ones. The mobs have slowly be making their way out of the cities, into the suburbs and getting closer and closer to your neighborhood.Will you:
A)stay and fortify your home, defend your neighborhood.

B)Leave home and look for a safer place to live. Pack what portable food and water you all can carry and survival essentials available at home. Leave with your spouse and children, knowing that you are probably never going to see your home again and embark on a nomadic journey to find safety and shelter.

C) Let your family members make their own decisions.But the civilized world is at an end, you weren’t made for this new world. Death is better than what is out there.

Welcome to Tiffany Meuter’s post-apocalyptic novel Cataclysm. Where ‘The Woman’ and her extended family are forced to make the above decision.

“Finally, I can be the murderous bitch I’ve always wanted to be.”

Through journal entries written by ‘The Woman’, a mother who will do anything in the name of ‘Love’ for her kids to ensure their survival, the reader gets a inside look at the life and losses of a typical nuclear family during and after the breakdown of civil society in a near future USA. And the AI computer program developed to help identify her decedents and identity 100 years after her death.

Protag: is an imperfect woman who is writing her own experience during the end of USA as we know it and life in the aftermath as people try to scavenge and build community to survive out of the rubble.

Genre:
Horror
-survival horror
-domestic horror
-technological horror
Science fiction
-post-apocalyptic
-Dystopian
Speculative
General adult fiction
Culture and social criticism

“Love is an empty word. It’s too vague. Insufficient. What does it mean to love? How can one love a partner and love a parent and also love a child?”

Themes:
-love
-survival
-anger and rage
-living for children
-inherited trauma
-power and corruption
-hate of parent
-ghosts/past haunts you- can’t escape it

Trigger warnings:
-death, murder and suicidal ideations and act itself featured
-drug use and addiction

“I would kill to feel so fucking alive like that, I have to keep my rage in a jar and use sparingly because it spoils to suicide when exposed too long to air.”

This was the first book I’ve read by Tiffany but I must say I actually really enjoyed it. But I didn’t fully like the final part of book with the inclusion of the AI’s train story metaphor. It was a good metaphor and moral lesson to summarize the woman’s story but it didn’t flow well for me with the overall narrative and the book could have been just as good without it. I would have loved more entries from the woman instead. I got this book as an ebook arc copy from netgalley, thank you spaceboy books llc for letting me read it early!

Tone:
Saddeness
Cynical
Bleak
Detached
Aggressive
Accusatory
Secretive
Violent
Sarcastic
Suspicious

PoV: multiple
1st person- journal and computer files
3rd person limited
3rd person -conversation between AI and man in transcript format
3rd person all seeing-train story

For fans of:
-‘The Road’

***not for people who want happy ending**+¥

I absolutely loved the way this book was written! The journal entries and the fact that The Woman remains nameless really allow the reader to feel immersed in the events and project themselves onto the narrator. I especially liked how this was a post apocalyptic horror novel but the main focus was the humanity behind the characters and not the apocalyptic events themselves. Thank you to NetGalley for the ARC.

Love that the chapters are in journal entry form, easier to connect to the story that way. It was very imaginative and kept me on the edge of my seat the entire book

Thank you to NetGalley for providing a review copy.
Cataclysm is unlike any book I've ever read. Some of the passages about motherhood actually made my breath catch; they were so true and beautiful. It's also quite a meditation on what it means to be human and the things we'll do to try to keep our children safe. If you have an "avant garde horror" category in any reading challenges, this would be an excellent choice.

Hey all! This was a pretty unique and pretty fun horror so I would recommend, darkness came out of like every pore oml. Thanks for the arc and cheers!

A good take on an overdone genre. I didn't have high expectations for this book but I enjoyed that it was written like a diary and always enjoy when books aren't super long so that I don't need to take too much time to get through something.