Review: The Migration by Helen Marshall

★★★★★

Review:

I originally wrote this review in October 2020, and I am sharing it here for the first time.

The Migration by Helen Marshall is an apocalyptic dystopian novel. An immune disorder affecting only children and young adults has emerged, and the world's top doctors and scientists struggle to understand it.  In addition to the arrival of this disease, massive storms and the subsequent flooding  are decimating entire cities. Sophie's little sister Kira has never been the same since her diagnosis, and when she dies suddenly, Sophie's entire world shifts. Sophie begins to realize that the information being released by the government is false and incomplete, and after videos are leaked of the recently deceased seemingly still very much alive, Sophie is determined to find out what the government is hiding from the public and what exactly has happened to her sister. Armed with her aunt's research and  the help of a young man who volunteers at the hospital, Sophie embarks on a mission to set her sister and those like her free.

When I picked up The Migration, I knew next to nothing about the plot. In fact, had I read the synopsis, I might not have read it.  The synopsis reads like a zombie horror story, but it is not that at all. At times haunting and tragic, but at most times touching and inspiring, this novel left me in a surreal state many days after I finished reading it. Surprisingly, this novel is marketed to adults, but I would argue that it may have been better marketed to young adults. Sophie is relatable in her unfaltering devotion to her sister and those like her. Her passion for doing what she believes to be right and natural, despite what the government is implementing, left me with a swelling sense of hope. Given our current climate in the times of COVID-19, when the world feels off-kilter, this is exactly the story I needed to bring me back to center.

#TheMigration

Audience: adult, young adult

Trigger warnings: death of a child, pandemic

Recommended for fans of: dystopian fiction, post-apocalyptic fiction, science fiction

Publisher's Synopsis:

When I was younger I didn't know a thing about death. I thought it meant stillness, a body gone limp. A marionette with its strings cut. Death was like a long vacation--a going away. Not this.

Storms and flooding are worsening around the world, and a mysterious immune disorder has begun to afflict the young. Sophie Perella is about to begin her senior year of high school in Toronto when her little sister, Kira, is diagnosed. Their parents' marriage falters under the strain, and Sophie's mother takes the girls to Oxford, England, to live with their Aunt Irene. An Oxford University professor and historical epidemiologist obsessed with relics of the Black Death, Irene works with a Centre that specializes in treating people with the illness. She is a friend to Sophie, and offers a window into a strange and ancient history of human plague and recovery. Sophie just wants to understand what's happening now; but as mortality rates climb, and reports emerge of bodily tremors in the deceased, it becomes clear there is nothing normal about this condition--and that the dead aren't staying dead. When Kira succumbs, Sophie faces an unimaginable choice: let go of the sister she knows, or take action to embrace something terrifying and new.

Tender and chilling, unsettling and hopeful, The Migration is a story of a young woman's dawning awareness of mortality and the power of the human heart to thrive in cataclysmic circumstances.

Source:

Libby

©Random House Canada: March 4, 2019

Edition: Audiobook

9 hours 57 minutes

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