A Boy and His Dog at the End of the World

This is gonna be a spoiler free review so I'm gonna omit anything that even alludes to the twist(s) because I feel like that would rob anyone interested in picking this book up of its best parts. Let me start off by saying that I love this book. I loved it! I'm writing this review 2 days after I finished it and after reading one other (critically acclaimed too!) and yet this is the book I'm still thinking about.It took me back to the books I was assigned to read in elementary school in the sense that I came in with an open mind not knowing what to expect (and maybe because the books I was assigned to read in elementary school included [b:Where the Red Fern Grows 10365 Where the Red Fern Grows Wilson Rawls https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1518702249l/10365.SY75.jpg 115] and [b:Hatchet 50 Hatchet (Brian's Saga, #1) Gary Paulsen https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1385297074l/50.SX50.jpg 1158125]) and just falling in love.As much as I loved it, it took me almost a month to get through this relatively short novel. It starts off slow and stays slow for most of the story, and there are many instances of very deliberate foreshadowing thrown in that effectively informs us readers that something terrible is just in the horizon. It's a creeping sense of dread that was hard for me to push through at times because I am a sap and I don't like it when bad things happen to characters I love. Don't let this put you off because even through the feelings of impending doom, Griz is such a natural storyteller and beautiful mind that there is warmth and comfort interspersed between the harrowing story of a kid exploring a mostly abandoned world. But then it hits that MASTERFUL twist and things go from 1 to 100 at light-speed. It was like being doused in cold water in the best possible way. A shock to your system that makes you want to reread the entire book again with the new lens you are given. The last part of the book is so different from the start and middle. I was sweating, my heart was beating fast, I needed to turn the page to see what happened next. And I needed to know whether the whole journey I took with Griz through the ruins of a world that this character never experienced, that was once my home, was worth it.So was it worth it? That's for you to find out :)