California by Edin Lepucki

I tried. I really did.  The premise was certainly a wonderful thing. However, midway into the book I found it to be a bit less in creativity and promise. 

Cal a past student of a college where trade, farming and academic skills are a part of the school landscape. He meets an aloof student  there who is the brother of his future wife. After the "happening" and LA is a disaster zone,  Cal and Frida take off to a place in the dark northern woods to live in a cabin. Frida is pregnant and life is getting harder by they day with their survival. Soon they pack up and venture out to look for a community that ends up being a strange, dark, paranoid world.

I gave up by the time the reached the community. Cal and Frida's relationship has become frayed at the edges making life in a new cultish world less than reasonable separate and as a couple.

I found it to be a dystopian fugue-y kind of nightmare where you are running and not getting anywhere. 

Now, I read copious reviews on this book. I had to as when I do am not sure about a book (especially when I paid for it) I need to know if it was just me and I need to go back at a later date or I seriously need to put it down. Half loved it, half hated it. I was hard pressed to find the in betweenies like me.

I could have finished it, but I decided not to with twinges of guilt. 

Skip it but keep in mind you may like it, it's one of those books.