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Two Dystopian Fiction Books to Read if You’re Wondering How the Coronavirus Plays Out

Bijal A Shah
4 min readMar 9, 2020

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Anything that threatens our existence, be it mild or rare always captures our imaginations and the coronavirus is no different. Whilst the majority can survive it, there’s always the threat of unknown unknowns that haunt us. Plus if you’re a parent, an elderly person or someone with a compromised immune system, you’re going to be that much more anxious.

As a bibliotherapist, who reaches out for fiction, for comfort, healing, rescue, I could not help but draw on two books that have fascinated me (and that made my list of Literature’s 13 Most Unusual Books) — both are about plague and disease which have taken root and hit the population hard. Both highly dystopian and extreme, there’ll be some comfort drawn from the fact that hopefully that’s not where we are heading. Or at least not just yet.

The first is The Country of Ice Cream Star by Sandra Newman

Sandra Newman’s The Country of Ice Cream Star

About a plague called ‘Posies’ that’s been killing people for generations before they hit the youthful age of twenty, the book is hauntingly dark, and starkly imaginative , landing you in a mindtrap about plagues, disease and viruses in…

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Bijal A Shah
Bijal A Shah

Written by Bijal A Shah

Bibliotherapist, author, poet & founder of Book Therapy - therapy using the power of literature: https://www.booktherapy.io/ and www.bit.ly/bibliotherapycourse

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