Blank

Imagine the world just reset itself, everything goes Blank, and humankind can’t remember the past. No one knows how much time has passed since the Blank; no one remembers much of the time before. Set in a dystopian version of Earth, where seeds are used to barter for goods, we meet the sisters Danube and Amazon Rivers along with the Bailiwick brothers, Alabama and Nebraska. The four youths grew up in the same town, and one day they stumbled across the mysterious Alice, who appeared out of nowhere. But unlike the four and their mundane lives, Alice knows how the world came to be in its current state. Told in the third person while displaying multiple character points of view, Nanette L. Avery’s novel Blank distinguishes life not endowed with ready-made meaning and the characters who are responsible for creating their own. The world everyone knew before is gone, and the one they have ended up in operates by a completely different set of rules. Alice’s existence may very well destroy what humanity has rebuilt, but she must complete the mission she was entrusted with at any cost.