New Novel Is the Postapocalyptic Queer YA Adventure Romance We Need Now

All That’s Left In the World is a young adult post-apocalyptic novel that hits incredibly close to home for its social commentary and parallels to the COVID-19 pandemic  by Erik J. Brown, that feels like a classic and also brand spanking new.

The book is like What If It’s Us meets They Both Die at the End in a postapocalyptic, queer YA adventure romance. It’s perfect for fans of Adam Silvera, Alex London, and Heartstopper by Alice Oseman.

When Andrew stumbles upon Jamie’s house, he’s injured, starved, and has nothing left to lose. A deadly pathogen has killed off most of the world’s population, including everyone both boys have ever loved. And if this new world has taught them anything, it’s to be scared of what other desperate people will do . . . so why does it seem so easy for them to trust each other?

After danger breaches their shelter, they flee south in search of civilization. But something isn’t adding up about Andrew’s story, and it could cost them everything. And Jamie has a secret, too. He’s starting to feel something more than friendship for Andrew, adding another layer of fear and confusion to an already tumultuous journey.

The road ahead of them is long, and to survive, they’ll have to shed their secrets, face the consequences of their actions, and find the courage to fight for the future they desire, together. Only one thing feels certain: all that’s left in their world is the undeniable pull they have toward each other.

Brown told Diverse Books: I specifically started writing YA after I read The Knife of Never Letting Go by Patrick Ness. That book took so many risks with storytelling and managed to say a lot about human nature and the themes in the book felt very mature. I had realized the Young Adult category had grown up so much since I had read it, so I started reading more. I’ve always wanted to write genre fiction with queer characters and YA was the space I felt needed that most and the space that would accept it the most.

Asked You wrote a post-apocalyptic novel that hits incredibly close to home for its social commentary and parallels to the COVID-19 pandemic. Can you talk a little bit about the timeline for this novel and the artistic choices you made? Are you a plotter or pantser?

I should get my dirty secret out of the way… I am a pantser. Chaotic Pantser leaning heavily toward “Neutral Plantser.” When I start writing a book I have the main character, the beginning, a vague idea of the plot, and the ending. For All That’s Left in the World I had Andrew and Jamie, the superflu, the idea that they would fall in love through the events of the book, and that was it. So when I wrote the first draft of the book in 2015 I wrote it very quickly—I think the entire manuscript took me just a week to write—and it was very messy. So messy I didn’t know what to do with it, so I left it on my computer and went on to write and query other projects. I would revisit All That’s Left every once in a while, and finally figured out what was wrong with it: the entire second half. So I changed almost everything in the last half of the book, only keeping a few names as easter eggs to that original draft that only I would know about.

Referring to the protagonists he says: I don’t think I’ve ever created two characters as easily as Andrew and Jamie were created (though my editor would argue that’s not true since she complimented the characters in my next book, but we’ll get to that later…). I knew I wanted Andrew to be an out and proud gay teen before the apocalypse, and I knew that I wanted Jamie to be discovering his sexuality in a post-apocalyptic world, but that was the only planning I really did for them before starting to write.

I think Jamie especially readers will connect to because he most clearly represents the universal truth of the book. His kindness, his openness to love; even when he has to stray outside of his moral compass, he’s doing it from a place of love. I’m trying very hard to avoid spoilers but I do think without Jamie, Andrew would struggle to remain along the same moral path.

Brown cites Toni Morrison’s Beloved and Blindness by Jose Saramago as absolutely influencing All That’s Left.

Brown concludes: I think the most important thing I want readers to discover after reading All That’s Left in the World is no matter how dark things get, there’s always something to have hope for. There might be a lot of queer kids reading the book that can’t come out or it’s not safe for them to do so. Sometimes that can feel so hopeless. I hope more than anything that reading this book is a bit of respite for them; that it makes them feel hope and love and that they find other books that help them get through life until they’re safe to live how they want to live.