The Nothing Within
By: Andy Giesler / Narrated By: Emily Sutton-Smith
Length: 13 hrs and 39 mins
Absolutely wonderful, but don’t be all shocked and offended if…
… you hear the F word tossed about a few times. Sorry, but I raaaarely have a problem with the word (Quite possibly one of the most versatile words in English, doncha know?!), so I was dismayed to see the most popular review of this AWEsome book pan it due to language. Yes, the F word is used, but c’mon: We’re talking dystopia and post-apocalypse. If you can’t mutter a foul word under your breath after the apocalypse, WHEN can you?
Trust me, I was getting ready to pan this book for other reasons: It has several storylines that start and stop and start and stop, with more than a hundred years in between. We get to know the Amish Ruth Troyer who lived before and just after a biotech apocalypse. We then get to know young Root, a blind girl who’s plainspoken (Tooooo plainspoken to suit the surrounding townsfolk). We get to know a dude by the name of Shepherd Gabriel—And we wonder the whole time, through all these three, what’s going on with “Shepherds” and “Weavers” and psychopathic chimeras who are out for blood, and whose blood taints and destroys.
Seriously, I had noooo idea what the heck was going on for a really long time. Ahhhh, but then we discover, as we go on (And on and on), that author Andy Giesler knows what the heck he’s been doing the whole time. He layers oh such thin layers atop each other, with juuuust enough information to stick in your head so that you find yourself popping your head with a hearty: Oooooh, so THAT’s what’s going on! It’s a relief, and it’s delightful at the same time.
Now I generally have all sorts of (Desperately) bad and obnoxious things to say about books’ Publisher’s Summaries in that they give out nothing, or they give out stuff that just so happens NOT to be what the book is actually about. But here, I’ve gotta tell ya: Read it! It’s only a few lines about a biotech plague, an Amish community in cut-off Ohio, and Root being irreverent and what all. And honestly, that pretty much sums up the whole book. There are stories and a plot in there, but there are too many twists and turns that my getting into them for you would spoil all of Giesler’s meticulous planning and writing.
Emily Sutton-Smith narrates this pretty awesomely for the most part. I felt she faltered a bit, most unfortunately, with her delivery of Root. Root, as written, is kinda a folksy sorta gal, but Sutton-Smith has her with smooth and cultured tones which don’t really fit. The “gosh darned it”s don’t come through; rather all is civilized and not very in-your-face or small-village sort of girl. Other than that, however, there are a LOT of characters to keep track of, and a MULtitude of situations and scrapes, plenty of violence, scenes of gore—You name it, Sutton-Smith handles it and delivers it well otherwise.
So basically I’ve told you nothing, but really: I caaaaan’t tell you or I’ll give it away. Suffice it to say that a male author manages to capture the hearts of two fierce, yet humble, women as main characters who move this convoluted dystopian story along.
And the ending?
Awwwww (But I’m not telling you another word)!
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