California by Edan Lepucki
I originally picked this up because Stephen Colbert told me to. I'm simple and I always do what the people in the television tell me to.
Luckily, this time, listening to the people in the big box was a good idea. Edan Lepucki has an incredible insight into the boring truths about marriage. Even after the world has all but ended, marriages are the same. You may love someone so much it hurts, but occasionally you just want to see a face other than the first person you see when you wake up and the last person you see when you go to sleep. And you don't really think about it, but I can imagine the same being even more true when the people in that marriage don't have exposure to the other people at work or, hell, just seeing strangers at the grocery store on a milk run. In the end, that person is your home... the person that saves you from the strangeness you previously sought out. And the person that makes you realize just how beautiful is the mundane life you have created together. Synopsis: The world Cal and Frida have always known is gone, and they've left the crumbling city of Los Angeles far behind them. They now live in a shack in the wilderness, working side-by-side to make their days tolerable in the face of hardship and isolation. Mourning a past they can't reclaim, they seek solace in each other. But the tentative existence they've built for themselves is thrown into doubt when Frida finds out she's pregnant. Terrified of the unknown and unsure of their ability to raise a child alone, Cal and Frida set out for the nearest settlement, a guarded and paranoid community with dark secrets. These people can offer them security, but Cal and Frida soon realize this community poses dangers of its own. In this unfamiliar world, where everything and everyone can be perceived as a threat, the couple must quickly decide whom to trust. A gripping and provocative debut novel by a stunning new talent, California imagines a frighteningly realistic near future, in which clashes between mankind's dark nature and deep-seated resilience force us to question how far we will go to protect the ones we love.
