Pandemic Book Part 2: Electric Boogaloo

     I'm not sure how I'm supposed to follow the note because I can't see what passages other people picked until I submit this.

-writing this as I read, I find it  mildly interesting that Jeevan was a paparazzo twice. I thought it was one solid block of his life, but nope.

-Also, what kind of name is Jeevan? for the remainder of this blog I'm gonna call him Jeeves

-calling it now I think Frank's gonna die or otherwise be separated from Jeeves.

-"his hands ached from compressing Arthur's unwilling heart" is a pretty neat line, good contender for the line I'll discuss.

-when Jeeves's phone rang and he said "hua" I thought that was an exclamation of surprise, like "HUH?!"

-I'm disappointed to find out Arthur wasn't patient zero, makes him less interesting to me, and it also makes the original "and this is when it happened" line I praised very dull in hindsight. Because even if "it" didn't happen, everything would basically be the same. I thought it was a seemingly insignificant moment that was actually a crucial point where the trajectory of the world dramatically shifted. But it turns out it was just an insignificant moment.

-with that in mind, I like "You told me to call you if there was ever a real epidemic." Not nearly as much as I initially liked "and this is when it happened," but still.

-""Listen," Hua said, "you have to get out of the city."" is a pretty good line as well, a big "DUN-DUN-DUNNNN" moment. Still, nothing will top the love I had for "and this is when it happened"

-eeuuuughhhhh, Laura listening skills (or lack thereof) are irritating. But that's a good thing from a writing standpoint, I feel what Jeeves is feeling.

-I'm not sure survivalism is a word, but I certainly found the exchange Jeeves and the doorman had about it to be pretty humorous.

-I think this book holds the record for the shortest chapter I've ever read, at only half a page. I wonder if later in the book there'll be a paragraph-long chapter, or even a sentence-long chapter. maybe we can get it down to one word! (this is a joke)

-Honestly I think chapter 4 and 5 could be the same chapter, since they both center around people being informed of Arthur's death.

-I'm a disappointed that we just jumped to after the collapse of civilization. I wanted to see Jeeves and Frank watch from the apartment as every facet of modern life crumbles before their eyes. instead, we just get a wall of text about everything that stopped, powerful in its own right, I guess. But as a reader, not nearly as powerful as the slow hopeless decline could've been.

1: I liked "Listen," Hua said, "you have to get out of the city." (19) and "A good place for what?" "For survivalism." "I see," the doorman said. (26) The former because Hua had already been characterized as not wanting to excite the ever-anxious Jeeves. So for him to say something so anxiety-inducing must mean the situation is that serious. The latter I enjoy because the back and forth of short dialogue is humorous, especially the doorman going "I see" because to me it reads as him trying to politely disengage from conversation with what he probably believes to be a manic prepper.

2: I was being homeschooled when the pandemic hit, and I was already pretty introverted, so I wasn't too affected by it. Wish I could say more but I genuinely have very little memory of the time, that's how uneventful it was for me. If it was as bad as the Georgian Flu, I doubt I'd be alive, if I was alive, I'd probably miss the internet the most (if my parents aren't dead in this scenario, that is).

3: In my mind, it paints Arthur as a well-known celebrity. What with the many divorces and the paparazzi hounding his corpse. I don't really understand how “This was during the final month of the era when it was possible to press a series of buttons on a telephone and speak with someone on the far side of the earth.” Is foreshadowing. It plainly tells you what will happen with no mystery. the phonelines are permanently down, meaning infrastructure in general is down (otherwise it would've been fixed), meaning that the world probably collapsed. I thought foreshadowing was a hint of what's to come without outright saying it, something that could add reread/rewatch value, because then you notice the foreshadowing the second time around and are like "ohhhhh". but with this, the virus was already established as quite deadly, and it's a dystopia book, so what will happen is not really up to interpretation.