and she reads

Melancholia was beautiful but I can't say I really liked it very much. Seeking a Friend was much more enjoyable (if thinking about the end of the world is ever really enjoyable). 

The Age of Miracles is the only one in the group that does not fall in the a-meteor-is-going-to-hit-Earth category. It was simply about the Earth turning more and more slowly. Days last longer, nights last longer and the whole absurd thing is told from the point of view of a 10 year old girl. 

The Last Policeman was by far my favorite. It was about a policeman (obviously) pursuing a murder that everyone else around him believes is a suicide. To be more precise no one really cares if it is a murder or a suicide because the world is ending in a few months. 

It fascinates and horrifies me in equal measures to imagine what the world would become if we knew it were going to end. In Seeking a Friend and The Last Policeman, the protagonists both clung to what little routine was left - going about their daily lives and doing their jobs. The world around them was going crazy, people trying to get in the last remnants of what they assumed would be very long lives, and these men continued to do normal boring things. In Seeking a Friend, the protagonist eventually succumbs to the bucket list scenario - (spoiler!) finding high school sweetheart, making up with long lost father, finding "true love", but in The Last Policeman he is dutiful to the end. 

This genre intrigues me but also makes me hurt. While reading The Last Policeman, I couldn't listen to the news because everything felt large and overly meaningful, like it could all lead to the end and then I would have to make the impossible decisions that I watched fictional characters make. Would I be a stick to the routine sort of person or would I quickly make up a bucket list so that I could complete some of it? It makes my heart heavy to imagine what it would be like and still I would read and watch more pre-apocalyptic books and movies. The best of the genre makes me ask enormous questions about myself and the world and I appreciate that.