I have read lots of post-apocalyptic books in recent years so I was little surprised when I accidentally stumbled into Yorick Blomenfeld’s book which had not seen before, named  “Jenny: A diary of a survivor”. This little book was previously unknown to me and online search did not give much information about it so I was interested to give this mysterious book a try. And I’m glad I did because Jenny’s diary turned out to be very interesting piece of work. 

As the name hints, this book is a diary of one Jenny Ewing, a middle class woman living in England. The book starts when Jenny writes about her mundane life in pages of her diary. Her problems in work. Relationship with secret lover. Her marriage. Kid’s hobbies. Thinking which dress to buy. The everyday life with it’s highs and lows. Until rumors start about conflict between superpowers. Soon after that, a global nuclear war begins.

Jenny: A diary of a survivor is a grim story of ordinary, everyday people trying to survive in the world after nuclear holocaust. Diary describes Jenny’s thoughts and feelings when she is thrown into unimaginable and horrifying situation. Despair, horror and finally sorrow and numbness are present in her journal when people descent to shadows of what they used to be. Things that were important before turn worthless. Days become only numbers. 

The layout

One particular thing in book is the way it is written. There is not much information about book to find online so there might be different versions available but the layout of reviewed version of the book was handwritten like real diary. This brings a whole different realism in the book and it feels as if reader is reading a real diary that was found.

Handwritten text also gives different dimension to the story. In the start, the layout of the diary is written carefully with sophisticated letters and straight lines. As the horrors start, writing in the diary becomes more franctic, like it was written in a hurry. You can see Jennys feelings just by looking at the page with written text and little drawings here and there. You don’t just read the words, you also sense them. This little detail gives this book a atmosphere of its own when comparing it to normal printed books.

A dreadful reminder

Jenny: A diary of a survivor is a quick read. You can probably read the diary in one or two reading sessions, this does not however mean that this book has little to say. The diary was published in early 80’s so the global fear of nuclear arms race is present in the story which had great resemblance to BBC’s horrifying movie Threads. These both stories are a grim reminder about insanity of nuclear war where there are no winners but only those who survived to suffer the consequences.