Yesterday, at Kirkus Reviews...

...I wrote about Jamie Kain's Instructions for the End of the World:

There were two aspects of this book that I found entirely engaging and refreshing. First, I loved Kain’s commentary about the difference between survival as a lifestyle CHOICE, and survival as a NECESSITY.

Nicole’s father—due in part to 9/11, due in part to other factors—is convinced that civilization is going to crumble, and soon. He believes that comfort is unnecessary, an indulgence, and promotes weakness. Nicole’s mother, meanwhile, is originally from Cambodia, and she and her family—those who didn’t die when her village was massacred by the Khmer Rouge—immigrated to the United States when she was 6. She has experienced terror and hunger and loss, and she’s not about to revisit that by choice—and the fact that her husband doesn’t understand that, isn’t interested in seeing or acknowledging that, is just one facet of the many, many problems between them.