The author uses the catalyst of the abduction to introduce us to various women who live on the peninsula, giving each of the chosen a single chapter in which to tell her story, to air her grievances, to state her regrets, to chase her goals, and to say how the abduction of the children has changed, affected, or reinforced her opinions of the city, on men, on class, on race relations and on the role of women within the society.

The abduction of the girls sets off a chain of reactions that reverberates throughout Kamchatka, touching the lives of a variety of people. Before the end of the chapter, we find out that both girls have been abducted, stolen, from the coast, like the people in that one village who were all dragged out into the sea.Īlthough the opening might sound like something out of a crime novel, Phillips’ book is very literary, with a variety of focal points. The older sister tries to scare the younger one by telling her a story of a village that was washed away by the sea. In the opening chapter, the girls are on the beach. They spend it mostly by hanging out in the city, close to the shore. Phillips’ story begins with two young girls, sisters, who are on their August vacation from school. The only thing that was not new to me was the sheer range of human emotions that were experienced by the characters. It is a beautiful and real place, and yet, to me, with my Guyanese/Caribbean/South American identity, it feels surreal in how utterly foreign and fascinating it is in the novel. Children might help to herd deer with their grandparents while on their breaks from school. In Kamchatka, people can be found walking in the city of Petropavlask and people can be found camping in the forests. ‘Disappearing Earth’ by Julia Phillips, 2019, Knopf There is a blend of races, whites and indigenous peoples, who intermingle and yet retain strained relationships with each other. Here, there are mountains and forests, as well as a cold ocean, that all come together to isolate the spot of land. Kamchatka, a peninsula in Russia, is the setting. It managed to carry me to a place that I had never heard of before.

‘Disappearing Earth,’ by Julia Phillips is one of these kinds of books for me. It is through reading that we get to travel to real-world locales, such as the Sahara Desert or Tokyo, as well as completely made-up places, such as Hogwarts or Narnia.

ONE of the great things about books, as our teachers and family members had told us countless times in the past when we were children, is the ability of literature to transport readers to faraway places.

Disappearing earth review