Bingo Square: Asia & Oceana
The world is ending. In nine months’ time, it will cease to be, and nothing can stop it. 17 year old Aisha is navigating this new reality, while trying to heal from other wounds. Loss of family members, the disappearance of her sister June two years ago. Making the decision to go and find June before the world ends, Aisha and her mother, Aisha’s boyfriend Walter, and Walter’s parents, get in a camper van and set off in search of her. Taking along an ugly cat named Fleabag they’ve acquired.
This is a very quiet end of the world story. It’s not apocalyptic, the focus is almost entirely on this one family and how they’re coping, and how they use their little remaining time to come to terms with their pasts. It’s sweet, and moving at times, but it wasn’t quite what I was expecting. The title and the blurb do suggest more. a) there’s only one cat, and while you could use cats to describe people too (if you were feeling groovy), they don’t meet those either. b) It’s described as a road trip, and I assumed they would get to where they thought June was and she wouldn’t be there, they’d go searching, see more of the country and meet people along the way. Maybe the people they met would help Aisha in some way. But after one short stop they find her where she had always been assumed to be. I wanted a bit more from it. But the relationship between the sisters felt true, and Aisha’s feelings of abandonment. I wish there had been a bit more to their reconciliation, as it happened fairly easily. But maybe with it being the end of the world you would put things aside.
Otherwise, it’s a gentle story about a family and coming to terms with grief, sprinkled with a little bit of hope.