It made me reread parts trying to figure it out. I had a hard time figuring out who was talking or if it was Hig thinking to himself. I also have problems with the lack of quotes.

The first half of the book felt like set-up and I felt like the last half was almost rushed. I did enjoy the relationships in the story, but it did feel like there was a lot of set-up before the main plot got going. When something happens that shakes up Hig's worldview, he decides that he wants to fly farther than he ever has before to possibly see what is left of the world. Hig doesn't always agree with this, but knows that Bangley has kept him alive for years. Bangley doesn't trust anyone out in the world and assumes everyone is going to want to kill them so he wants to kill them first. He does have a pretty sweet set-up with Bangley who has some kind of military training to keep their area they are living in the past nine years safe.

Reviewįor a post-apocalyptic story, the protagonist, Hig, is pretty light-hearted for the dire situation he has found himself in. Narrated by a man who is part warrior and part dreamer, a hunter with a great shot and a heart that refuses to harden, The Dog Stars is both savagely funny and achingly sad, a breathtaking story about what it means to be human. But what he encounters and what he must face - in the people he meets, and in himself - is both better and worse than anything he could have hoped for. Risking everything, he flies past his point of no return - not enough fuel to get him home - following the trail of the static-broken voice on the radio. But when a random transmission somehow beams through his radio, the voice ignites a hope deep inside him that a better life - something like his old life - exists beyond the airport.

In his 1956 Cessna, Hig flies the perimeter of the airfield or sneaks off to the mountains to fish and to pretend that things are the way they used to be. His wife is gone, his friends are dead, he lives in the hangar of a small abandoned airport with his dog, his only neighbor a gun-toting misanthrope. Hig survived the flu that killed everyone he knows. A riveting, powerful novel about a pilot living in a world filled with loss - and what he is willing to risk to rediscover, against all odds, connection, love, and grace.

The dog stars book