Next Stop

De: Benjamin Resnick

Narrado por: Gilli Messer

For listeners of Leave the World Behind and Exit West, an astonishingly resonant novel that explores the precariousness of Jewish American life through one family after a black hole consumes the State of Israel and similar strange events occur in major cities around the world, ushering in a time of chaos as well as miracles.

When a black hole suddenly consumes Israel and as similar anomalies spread across the globe, a conspiracy takes hold: will the holes swallow the Jews, or will they swallow the earth?

Against a backdrop of antisemitic paranoia, restrictions on Jewish life, and spasms of violence, Ethan and Ella, Jewish citizens of a nameless American city, meet and fall in love. Ella, a photojournalist, documents the changes in daily life, particularly among the city’s Jewish residents. Some Jews, feeling inexplicably drawn to the unusual events, go underground to an abandoned subway system that seems to connect the entire world. Others leave for the south, forming militias and stockpiling weapons. But most, like Ethan, Ella, and her young son Michael, stay and try to make their way amid the hostility and small joys of the ever-changing landscape.

But then thousands of commercial planes are sucked from the sky. Air travel stops. Borders close. Refugees pour into the capital. Eventually all Jews in the city are forced to relocate to the Pale, an area sandwiched between a park and a river. There, under the watchful eye of border guards, drones, and robotic dogs, they form a fragile new society.

Suspenseful, thought-provoking, and brilliantly conceived, Next Stop is an enthralling novel that explores the fault lines between our collective, national, and individual memories and how our deepest bonds can be unexpectedly reshaped in moments of crisis.

©2024 Benjamin Resnick (P)2024 Simon & Schuster Audio

Worth a read

Interesting book. The genre is one I like and since I'm Jewish...

I was never bored (this is high praise from me). I found the setting and the premise interesting, but it was confusing (not something I usually say) and vague. No answers to be found, which is ok because other aspects of the book weren't entirely satisfying, I wanted at least ONE answer.

Ella and Ethan were...not likeable or unlikeable. I usually felt pretty neutral about them while occasionally tipping toward like or dislike. Again, not something that I usually feel when reading--I generally like or dislike characters. Michael, Ella's son...well, I guess he was the most likeable MC. I mention this because I generally want at least one MC to be likeable because I want to root for them. If I don't care one way or the other, something else needs to carry the story, and something else did (the plot, description, anti-Semitism thorough a dystopian lens, etc.) so I kept reading.

Excellent first novel

Rabbi Resnick has a great imagination and his book very frighteningly is timed with increased antisemitism in our society. Excellent character development- you end up caring about each of the main characters. Very thought provoking - makes you think of parallels both in history and in the Tanakh. Not just for Jews. Leaves you wanting to know more.

Nonsensical premise results in a laughably overwrought novel

In an attempt to incorporate Jewish themes this quite silly and poorly written novel never fails to disappoint. The exaggerated storytelling incorporates stereotypical elements of Jewish culture and practice and results in an almost nonsensical and juvenile mischaracterization of that very culture. Layered onto a partially developed dystopian sci-fi plot device which we never fully understand, the Jewish themes become silly and strangely and ineffectively apologetic in their efforts to add texture to the story. In fact they do the opposite: so poorly presented and developed they become cumbersome and laughable in their shallow simplicity. I tried to give it a full listen but when I reached the section where the “messiah” appears, I gave up. Is there a Jewish motif this author fails to exploit into ridiculousness?