The Electric Kingdom

David Arnold

Feb 2021 · Sold by Penguin

About this ebook

New York Times bestseller David Arnold's most ambitious novel to date; Station Eleven meets The 5th Wave in a genre-smashing story of survival, hope, and love amid a ravaged earth.

When a deadly Fly Flu sweeps the globe, it leaves a shell of the world that once was. Among the survivors are eighteen-year-old Nico and her dog, on a voyage devised by Nico's father to find a mythical portal; a young artist named Kit, raised in an old abandoned cinema; and the enigmatic Deliverer, who lives Life after Life in an attempt to put the world back together. As swarms of infected Flies roam the earth, these few survivors navigate the woods of post-apocalyptic New England, meeting others along the way, each on their own quest to find life and love in a world gone dark. The Electric Kingdom is a sweeping exploration of art, storytelling, eternal life, and above all, a testament to the notion that even in an exterminated world, one person might find beauty in another.

Ratings and reviews

Just a few years after a fly flu, the mutated insect has devastated the Earth, leaving little behind. This story is told mainly from Nico and Kits point of view with a few short chapters from an unknown character named The Deliverer. To be honest my favorite part of the story was these chapters which is so sad, they were so short and far between. My favorite part of the book and why I liked the Deliverer’s chapters so much is because it added so much unknown to the story. This did have me engaged because the Deliverer’s chapters were told from a first-person point of view and it was told in a way that you already knew the information. This way you are gaining knowledge about what is happening without knowing why or the background of this character. For me I really enjoyed how much unknown was weaved into the story. Throughout, you slowly get more and more information that you can piece together. Even though you don’t know the whole story and know that you are missing information it doesn’t make the story less hard to understand. I do appreciate this about the book. I have had some books where because you don’t know what they are talking about you just get lost and miss any piece of information that would start to piece it together. This one wasn’t like that. I was still able to follow the story line without having all the information. I was also able to piece the information together as it was given. I also like that a lot of things were described to you, not told right out. This allows you to gather the information and come to a logical conclusion, but to be honest it felt like a middle grade book instead of a YA. Just the terminology and thinking and actions of the characters made it not very appealing for me to read. The way that they interacted with each other felt forced and not very natural. The relationships seam very spontaneous with no logical reasons behind them. With the romantic relationships it felt like how 5 year old’s would go up to each other and say your my girlfriend/boyfriend. I kind of got that the only reason they started dating is because there was no one else left to date and because they are teenagers so, why not. I also didn’t think the characters were developed very well. I didn’t have a very good sense of who they were and so I attained no emotional attachment to any of them. I also think that the story lacked action. Most of the book it was just the kids wondering through the woods. Weird because it also lacked description? So, it lacked action, and describing details, which is very odd. I did really enjoy the ending and how all the loose ends were tied up and how all those little things you now understood, but to get to that point felt like a long drive. I also think that the Kit perspective could have been left out. I understood why it was added, to add another perspective to the whole situation and to tie the relationships of the characters together but his story line didn’t add much to the book, other than words. So overall I think it was a great idea and the ending was perfect in my book, but the main core of the stories plot and the characters, needed further working on.

Gripping and Hopeful The premise of this book as well as the cover were enough to request an ARC of this exciting novel. The characters felt so real to me and each had his or her strengths and dreams, despite their dire circumstances in which most of human life had been wiped out by a genetically altered bee. This is a tale of found family and first loves intricately woven together like a beautiful pattern in nature. It's a tale of survival and hope as the characters seek to find refuge and what they believe are their destinies. The writing is lyrical and often poetic and although at times this novel dragged a bit, I never wanted to stop reading and stayed up well past my bedtime to finish. I needed to know who was the Deliverer and to see if my guess was correct. This book brought out all the emotions--happiness, anger, fear, anxiety--and helped me have hope for our current pandemic situation that humanity will pull through this and come out stronger on the backside. The ending is spot on perfect for this timely novel.

Well, this was certainly mind twisting. It starts out just before the end of the world due to the flies (but not really flies) that eat people and bring the flu, killing off the majority of human life and ends with a new kind of life that was really cool. Certainly not what I expected and I will be thinking about this for a bit, trying to get my head around the concept. Told in three viewpoints, Nico (traveling with her dog Harry to fulfill her father's plan in the land of Manchester), the Deliverer (an enigmatic being clad in a space suit and has lived many lives), and Kit (a young lad who seems to know things). I like how it didn't immediately have tons of action so that you could get to know and care for the characters. The buildup was good too for the unraveling of all the mysteries. The flies were creepy though and I hope they never show up in this world. I really liked this book and I am glad it ended the way it did. It was full of hope.

About the author

David Arnold is the New York Times bestselling author of The Electric Kingdom, Mosquitoland, Kids of Appetite, and The Strange Fascinations of Noah Hypnotik, which has been optioned for film by Paramount. He has won the Southern Book Prize and the Great Lakes Book Award, and was named a Publishers Weekly Flying Start for his debut. His books have been translated into over a dozen languages. He lives in Lexington, Kentucky, with his wife and son.

Learn more at davidarnoldbooks.com and follow him on Instagram @iamdavidarnold and Twitter @roofbeam.