“Lark Ascending” by Silas House Review

Set in a somewhat near dystopian future, Lark finds himself in Ireland as he and his family attempted to flee America due to fires and religious takeover.  Being the last survivor of a boat crash, Lark ends up alone not knowing what the future holds for him, until he finds a partner in Seamus, one of the last remaining dogs in the world, and Helen, an Irish woman on the run since the war began.  This unlikely trio travel to find a community that will accept them while trying to avoid those who want them dead.

Dystopian is one of my favorite genres and while it seems that the fad of these kind of novels has come and gone, I was so happy to stumble upon this one published so recently.  Like other dystopian novels before it, what draws me in are the parallels to present day events.  Fires take over America, forcing Lark and his family to flee from their original home in Maryland and flee to Maine, showing us the impacts that climate change can have on those who are just trying to live their lives.  The takeover of religious extremists is also what pushes Lark and his family to eventually flee all the way to Ireland.  There is a lot of political discourse going on nowadays that seems to be attacking people of the LGBTQIA+ community in America and a lot of it seems to stem from those who want to use their religion to say that people of this community cannot exist as they truly are.  The past dystopian novels I read back in my middle and high school days really focused on the government and how they like to tell us they are working with us but sometimes you need to peal back the curtain and see what they are really doing.  This novel, however, turns away from the government is bad trope and focuses on the actual people behind what makes the world go to war.  There are people who think differently and want to ignore what is happening around them and those are the ones that have the biggest impact on how things go down.  I like how instead of focusing on the faceless people that were the ones that took over, we focus on the family that was impacted by it.  We do not need to bring attention to those in charge all of the time, because most of the time, they are the ones who have the greatest stories.

Most of the time, we are reading from the first-person perspective of Lark, but every now and then, we are brought into the mind of Seamus the dog.  I love having this break up of narrative perspectives especially when the story moves so quickly.  These chapters are never very long, but it reminds us that just because animals cannot speak to us does not mean that they do not experience the same things we do.  Dogs have for the longest time been called “man’s best friend” and we are able to explore that and how Seamus is feeling during his perspective chapters.  This is the second book that I have read recently that has chapters that let the dog speak, and both have been favorites of mine.  Coincidence??

What makes this novel very enjoyable for me is that because of its length, there is not really a lot of room to have a lot of breaks and it is just all action the entire time.  Even if intense and high-energy action scenes are not taking place, everything the characters do mean something and have some kind of impact with usually pretty quick results.  Sitting at around 275, we are dropped right in the middle of the main inciting incident — traveling along the boat from Canada to Ireland.  We have an immediate idea on who the characters are and what their main motivations are.  It is nice to read a book that knows how much it wants to accomplish and does not need to add page length to drag it out.  The quick-pace of the story was what made me connect and enjoy the story more.  I did not feel like anything was missing from the characters or their motivations while also not feeling like the story was dragged down due to wanting to expand the page count.   If you like a story that gets right to the point right away, this is the book for you.

A found family story for the dystopian lovers, Lark Ascending is a refreshing and new take on the genre, proving that these kind of stories are more than just a fad.

 

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