Post Apocalyptic

After the apocalypse we stopped thinking
Clean water was something poor people just might not have
And spilling oil into the aquifers was part of the cost of doing business.
The cost of doing business came up a lot less,
After the apocalypse; instead we said balance,
We said nurture
And when we said growth, we meant plants, animals, each other.
After the apocalypse we stopped saying "thank God that's over"
About every year, every month
Every day.
After the apocalypse, we learned to count again:
Your voice, your voice, your voice, one two three all
And not shut up shut up oh God shut up
And not three two one where did they go.
We stopped telling the kids not to ask about that.
After the apocalypse we remembered a lot of old songs
Wrote new ones
Thought we'd cry less but cried more for awhile
Made up a really good recipe for bean soup
That our brother-in-law doesn't like and that's okay.
It's not--
It didn't turn out to be--
The end of the world
After all.

The Unconquered City, by K.A. Doore

Review copy provided by the author, who is a personal friend and shares an agent with me.

This is the triumphant conclusion of the Chronicles of Ghadid. Previous protagonists make appearances for more than cameos--they have substantial roles, they have been allowed to grow in their lives, and it's so much fun to see how. But this book belongs to Illi.

Illi is a braid-wearing, truculent cousin who has been serving as Heru's research assistant as well as training as an assassin and guul-slayer. She has already lost so much in the first two books of this trilogy, but Illi puts her head down, sets her chin, and keeps going.

Until now. Now Illi is caught between powerful forces--including Heru--who are not treating her like a person, and there's a sajaami at stake. Powerful, manipulative, ready to eat souls at a moment's notice. Including, if necessary, Illi's. The people she can trust are all people she wants to protect--the people with enough power to help her? She can't trust. And between Ghadid, only now beginning to rebuild, and strange, sea-side Hathage, the answer has to be somewhere. Illi has the skills she learned from both magical research and assassin training, but she needs more. She needs her cousins. She needs Canthem, the intriguing caravan guard. She needs...missing pieces from centuries ago. And she needs it all last week.

Resplendent, definitive, and recommended.