Book Review: The Sunlight Pilgrims

The Sunlight Pilgrims by Jenni Fagan

My rating: 2 of 5 stars

This is an apocalypse story that stars some really boring people; and a transgender teen. The most interesting part is not the apocalypse (which felt barely relevant half the time) but instead our teenager; who isn't even the main character of the story.

Plot
A mid-aged man learns that his family is in debt and after his mother and her partner die he is left with no choice but to flee the home he's always known; a one-screen cinema. He ends up in a little trailer in Northern Ireland in what is about to be another Earth Ice Age. There he meets a woman and her teenage daughter.
Sounds promising enough right? Unfortunately there is no real plot here except existing and even that plot is so thin it's barely there. For me it's not enough plot to just have your characters existing. Particularly when the conditions being described aren't even that bad at first.

Ice Age
First let me say, I live in Canada. Not in a warm part of Canada but on the cold open prairies of Alberta. I know cold and I know snow. Both have been a part of my life since the day I was born (in a blizzard in February). So when I read a book whose core plot is that Earth is devolving into an imminent Ice Age I know what is survivable and what is not. Unfortunately Jenni Fagan does not seem to have the same knowledge.
There are ridiculous situations described both where people live (and don't have frostbite) and where people die from the winter conditions. It's like the cold is no big deal when it's convenient (like our main characters are out in it); but as soon as someone else in the cold they are dead. Far too convenient and not consistent enough to be even close to the truth of what cold weather does to the human body.

Temperature
Speaking of it being cold, I am so confused by the units of measurement used in this book. It's written by a UK author so (as a Canadian) I am expecting to have temperatures in Celsius and distances in kilometers. And yet, I get miles per hour and temperatures with no measurement associated with them AT ALL! I read this entire book and still don't know if the temperatures in it are supposed to be Celsius or Fahrenheit!! This was beyond frustrating. Now by the end of the book at the -40 to -50 degree range it doesn't matter, as the two systems start to sync up momentarily, however that is not the point. If you are going to write a book where temperature is so important be sure to tell your reader the unit of measure please!

Transgender Teen
If not for our teen and her story I would have given up on this book before I finished it. This is a girl (who was a boy) whose finding it difficult to find friends or have connections with the majority of people in her life as they make fun of her (kids/teens) or still see her as a boy (adults). Even her own father doesn't use her female name! I felt that the discussion of our teen girl was relatively well done. It wasn't super in-depth and I didn't feel like I learned anything new about the types of emotions a transgender teen might go through. But at the very least she was interesting and a very likeable character. I wanted to be her friend; especially when no one else would be.

Overall
I was really disappointed by The Sunlight Pilgrims. It seems that books that focus on cold weather situations are just not up to the standard I expect. I'm not sure why it is so hard to research and understand the cold for most authors but lately it feels like there is some sort of 'cold education' that winter seasoned folks around the world have that others cannot understand.
Some good ideas were present; the characters core back stories were well represented (if not their emotions regarding their current state), the concept of an Ice Age and dwindling resources was fine but Fagan missed the boat (or iceberg if you will) for me. I wanted to feel afraid of the cold and I wanted to feel cold reading this book; but instead all I felt was indifference to 90% of the plot points, cold weather and characters portrayed.

Please note: I received an eARC of this book from the publisher via NetGalley. This is an honest and unbiased review.

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