Her essential loneliness is exploited, and her desire for connection turns into a desperate bid for friendship towards people who are, at their core, dangerous. Much of the novel’s genius is subtlety-as readers, we see the red flags, but Aretha performs a series of mental gymnastics to avoid the fact that she is becoming more like these people, and less rational. The Survivalists is a smart, sharp novel, which uses widely held beliefs about liberalism and woke culture to juxtapose Aretha’s slow glide into doomsday prepping. Soon, Aretha is alienated from her friends, drawn further and further into this world of the survivalists, and she must decide how much of herself she is willing to compromise, and what her values truly are.
Brittany has a small arsenal of military-issue guns in her closet. Aretha tries to ignore the fact that they have guns in their house, and when she moves in with them, small things about Aaron and his roommates bother her. But is it?Īaron is a survivalist-essentially a doomsday prepper, and his roommates Brittany and James have built a bunker in their backyard. When she meets Aaron, roaster for Tactical Coffee, on a dating app, everything seems like it’s written in the stars. She wants to make partner at her law firm, not because it’s what she really wants, but because it’s what she thinks it’s what she’s supposed to want, and she wants to meet the perfect guy, because deep down, she’s lonely. Protagonist Aretha has it all-a so-called “good job” at a corporate law firm, a best friend, Nia, who is a well-off private practice therapist, and an active dating life, but she still craves more.
Moving into his Brooklyn brownstone to live along with his Hurricane Sandy-traumatized, illegal-gun-stockpiling, optimized-soy-protein-eating, bunker-building roommates, Aretha finds that her dreams of making partner are slipping away, replaced by an underground world, one of selling guns and training for a doomsday that’s maybe just around the corner.The Survivalists by Kashana Cauley ruthlessly interrogates what it means to be successful as a Black woman, a Millennial, and a liberal living in an urban center. In the wake of her parents’ death, Aretha, a habitually single Black lawyer, has had only one obsession in life-success-until she falls for Aaron, a coffee entrepreneur. “A great and engrossing read, Kashana humanizes a way of life that is often made fun of and makes the reader understand why someone would go to such great lengths to prepare for the future, so much so she almost sold me on those Life Preserver soy bars!” -Trevor NoahĪ single Black lawyer puts her career and personal moral code at risk when she moves in with her coffee entrepreneur boyfriend and his doomsday-prepping roommates in a novel that's packed with tension, curiosity, humor, and wit from a writer with serious comedy credentials
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