Thrillers & Suspense
![Ewan Morrison - [object Object] author](https://res.cloudinary.com/readsomnia/image/upload/authors/a_a_ewan_morrison.jpg)
How to Survive Everything: A Novel
Longlisted for the 2021 McIlvanney Prize for Scottish Crime Book of the Year
Shortlisted for the 2021 Bookmark Book of the Year Prize
"One of the most provocative, intelligent and original novelists working in Britain today" (Irvine Welsh, author of Trainspotting) makes his American debut with this darkly comic and electrifyingly twisty thriller with echoes of Emily St. John Mandel, Lionel Shriver, and Richard Powers, in which a teenage girl and her brother are abducted by their survivalist father who believes the apocalypse has begun.
"An absolutely brilliant read."-Lucy Mangan, journalist and author of Are We Having Fun Yet?
"Hilarious, foreboding with all of the brilliance and brutality of life in between. Haley is the hero of our times-bold, bewitching, and superbly drawn. Her voice rang in my ears long after I reluctantly turned the last page."-Diane Cook, author of the Booker Prize nominated novel The New Wilderness
My name is Haley Cooper Crowe and I am in lockdown in a remote location I can't tell you about.
Children of divorce, Haley and Ben live with their mother. But their dad believes there's a new, much deadlier pandemic coming and is determined to keep them alive. He wants to take them to his prepper hideaway where they will be safe from other people. NOW. But there's no way their mother will go along with his plan. Saving them requires extreme measures.
Kidnapped by their father and confined to his compound far off the grid, Haley and Ben have no contact with the outside world. How can they save their mother? Will they make it out alive? Is the threat real-or is this all just a dark fantasy brought on by their conspiracy obsessed father's warped imagination?
Propulsive and chilling in its realism, How to Survive Everything is the story of a world imploding; a teenage girl's record for negotiating the collapse of everything she knows-including her family and sanity.
Shortlisted for the 2021 Bookmark Book of the Year Prize
"One of the most provocative, intelligent and original novelists working in Britain today" (Irvine Welsh, author of Trainspotting) makes his American debut with this darkly comic and electrifyingly twisty thriller with echoes of Emily St. John Mandel, Lionel Shriver, and Richard Powers, in which a teenage girl and her brother are abducted by their survivalist father who believes the apocalypse has begun.
"An absolutely brilliant read."-Lucy Mangan, journalist and author of Are We Having Fun Yet?
"Hilarious, foreboding with all of the brilliance and brutality of life in between. Haley is the hero of our times-bold, bewitching, and superbly drawn. Her voice rang in my ears long after I reluctantly turned the last page."-Diane Cook, author of the Booker Prize nominated novel The New Wilderness
My name is Haley Cooper Crowe and I am in lockdown in a remote location I can't tell you about.
Children of divorce, Haley and Ben live with their mother. But their dad believes there's a new, much deadlier pandemic coming and is determined to keep them alive. He wants to take them to his prepper hideaway where they will be safe from other people. NOW. But there's no way their mother will go along with his plan. Saving them requires extreme measures.
Kidnapped by their father and confined to his compound far off the grid, Haley and Ben have no contact with the outside world. How can they save their mother? Will they make it out alive? Is the threat real-or is this all just a dark fantasy brought on by their conspiracy obsessed father's warped imagination?
Propulsive and chilling in its realism, How to Survive Everything is the story of a world imploding; a teenage girl's record for negotiating the collapse of everything she knows-including her family and sanity.
Editorial Reviews
"Hilarious, foreboding with all of the brilliance and brutality of life in between. Haley is the hero of our times-bold, bewitching, and superbly drawn. Her voice rang in my ears long after I reluctantly turned the last page." - Diane Cook, author of the Booker Prize nominated novel The New Wilderness
"One of the most provocative, intelligent and original novelists working in Britain today." - Irvine Welsh, author of Trainspotting
"What an extraordinarily wonderful and daring novel this is. It questions everything we are supposed to hold dear - truth, family, love, the purpose of life itself. Through the shallow thinking and petty bickerings of his hopeless, ever hopeful, messed-up, insanely normal characters, Ewan Morrison tells a story with profound implications for us all. Claustrophobic, horrifying, frightening, intriguing, wise and daft, it's a book full of sadness and humor and, even at its craziest, of great beauty."
- James Robertson, winner of the Sir Walter Scott Prize
"A terrific thriller . . . puts a very contemporary dysfunctional family at the heart of a very contemporary dystopian reality." - Lynda Obst, producer of Interstellar
"Stylishly crisp, thematically germane-and great fun." - Lionel Shriver, journalist and author of We Need to Talk about Kevin and Should We Stay or Should We Go
"I wasn't sure there could be a great pandemic novel. Here it is." - Ian Rankin, author of the Inspector Rebus novels
"This is an absolutely brilliant read." - Lucy Mangan, journalist and author of Are We Having Fun Yet?
"What an extraordinarily wonderful and daring novel this is. It questions everything we are supposed to hold dear - truth, family, love, the purpose of life itself. Through the shallow thinking and petty bickerings of his hopeless, ever hopeful, messed-up, insanely normal characters, Ewan Morrison tells a story with profound implications for us all. Claustrophobic, horrifying, frightening, intriguing, wise and daft, it's a book full of sadness and humor and, even at its craziest, of great beauty." - James Robertson, author of
"One of the most provocative, intelligent and original novelists working in Britain today." - Irvine Welsh, author of Trainspotting
"What an extraordinarily wonderful and daring novel this is. It questions everything we are supposed to hold dear - truth, family, love, the purpose of life itself. Through the shallow thinking and petty bickerings of his hopeless, ever hopeful, messed-up, insanely normal characters, Ewan Morrison tells a story with profound implications for us all. Claustrophobic, horrifying, frightening, intriguing, wise and daft, it's a book full of sadness and humor and, even at its craziest, of great beauty."
- James Robertson, winner of the Sir Walter Scott Prize
"A terrific thriller . . . puts a very contemporary dysfunctional family at the heart of a very contemporary dystopian reality." - Lynda Obst, producer of Interstellar
"Stylishly crisp, thematically germane-and great fun." - Lionel Shriver, journalist and author of We Need to Talk about Kevin and Should We Stay or Should We Go
"I wasn't sure there could be a great pandemic novel. Here it is." - Ian Rankin, author of the Inspector Rebus novels
"This is an absolutely brilliant read." - Lucy Mangan, journalist and author of Are We Having Fun Yet?
"What an extraordinarily wonderful and daring novel this is. It questions everything we are supposed to hold dear - truth, family, love, the purpose of life itself. Through the shallow thinking and petty bickerings of his hopeless, ever hopeful, messed-up, insanely normal characters, Ewan Morrison tells a story with profound implications for us all. Claustrophobic, horrifying, frightening, intriguing, wise and daft, it's a book full of sadness and humor and, even at its craziest, of great beauty." - James Robertson, author of
Readers Top Reviews
Michael Paul Kozlows
The last thing I believed I wanted to read was a pandemic novel. But then again, as the book shows, we're hardly ever prepared for last things. A tremendous novel, crafted so tightly it's as if it came from a sealed bunker. It dragged my fears and anxiety to even greater depths, only to give them brief bouts of air with timely comedy and a truly authentic 15 year old girl's voice, which is incredibly hard to pull off so well, but Morrison's talents are on full display here. It's a novel about trust, about truth and where we find it. Not only is it deserving of the highest praise, but it demands deep introspection and discussion as well. The ending alone has been ricocheting around my head nonstop since I finished. Overall, everyone should read it. It's haunting, unnerving, and brutal at parts; inspiring, funny, and deeply relatable at others. I suppose the best thing I could say about it is that it makes me look at the world differently. And that's about the most we could ask of any novel.
kathleen g
Haley has always felt pulled between her warring parents Justine, who keeps it together, and Ed, who doesn't but now Ed's kidnapped her and her little brother Ben and taken them to an off the grid compound. He believes, firmly believes, and has convinced others, that there is a coming pandemic that will basically wipe out humanity. Haley, though, is desperate to let her mother know where they are but when Justine finally arrives, Ed and the others pen her up in a shed in quarantine. Things go about as you might expect especially as, it turns out, Ed is and has been off his medications and is tilting into complete madness. Haley worries about both of her parents and Ben as well but she's stuck. Then there's a nightmare scenario that gets more gruesome than any of them (or the reader) thought. This is a page turner where you keep thinking someone will come to their senses. Haley is 15, with all the problems of a 15 year old who has been balancing between two people she loves and Morrison has captured that. Ed's not the complete bad guy and Justine isn't either. Thanks to Edelweiss for the ARC. It's an interesting read that will make you wonder whether there are others out there who are similarly preparing for the end of times pandemic (I'm sure there are).
Morgan S Schulman
A five star idea, minus a star and a half for the preciousness of the execution. Three. Five rounded up. This really could’ve used an editor to help this guy tone it down
Laura's Reviews
Thank you, Partner @bibliolifestyle @harperperennial for the review copy of How to Survive Everything by Ewan Morrison. I liked that I wasn't sure in this book if Haley's Dad was off in his world or if the pandemic was reality. It told through Haley's first person perspective and I thought it was riveting. Haley wonders about her Mom at first and her friends. She has teen angst about the only teen boy in the bunker, Danny. Do they like each other as the only two teens left in their bunker? There is also a horrifying surgery where the realities of living without modern medicine set in. I was looking for something different to read and enjoyed this one.
Lisa Rochette
**SPOILERS** 3.5 stars This was very challenging to review and certainly to put a star rating to, as I found myself with very mixed feelings overall. The novel is incredibly unique and has a smart perspective for a pandemic/dystopian novel, though is really disturbing in the same way. During a night when he has custody of his kids from his wife, Hayley's father (Ed) kidnaps her and her brother (Ben), whisking them away to his bunker/compound created in anticipation of a pandemic he is sure will bring much death and mayhem to the UK and beyond. They are not alone on these grounds, as Ed has brought in some "friends" he met in NA, Mabel and Ray (and sometimes Kane), and Mabel's teenage son, Danny. Teenage Hayley is trying to suss out how they all got in this position (when did her dad have time to build up this protected land?) and trying to acclimate but has many questions she can't get answers to. We learn along the way that Ed has been diagnosed with deep psychological problems and, without wifi access, Hayley can't tell how bad the world is getting outside their closed off land within chicken wire fences. Are all her friends sick, struggling to breathe with a sickness that has run rampant? Have grocery stores all been wiped out of essentials? Has Dad imagined something way worse than is happening? Maybe people are just hanging at the mall like usual? I love that Hayley and Ben have been taught from Ed, over their lifetimes, survivalist techniques/skills that will be helpful when deprived of resources we've all become accustomed to (electricity, wifi, water, etc). Ed is an inventor and has always found ways to exercise new ideas, which was a constant in Hayley and Ben's lives until their parents separated. While this is "conditioning" in a sense, there are true needs for these skills as the real world around us loses stability. I found myself less than enamored with the positioning of Hayley as not feminine enough, referring to herself possibly being "too geeky and tomboyish" as she enjoyed worked through a communication wiring hack her dad taught her. Terms like "tomboy" thrown around as negative (not an isolated incident in the book) is problematic to me in current times and make it feel obvious this came from a male author. It also feels like an incredibly rough position to put this young teen protagonist in: Hayley is the only person we meet who has the wherewithal to step back and evaluate the situation (as much as possible with limited access to news and outside information). While they are functioning inside their sheltered space as an isolated community at the end of the world, we don't actually know if a pandemic has started or whether Ed is acting on a doomsday inclination that may be completely unfounded. Hayley's responsibility to her family and her desire to believe her father is a heavy burd...
