Out of all the books we’ve read so far I found Children of Men to be the most depressing by a long shot. Specifically, I found the idea of sterility not only of men, but of different aspects of society to be utterly disheartening. I would have hoped or expected that if mankind were faced with some sort of imminent mass extinction crisis, then every single human being would be actively be working to find a solution. Instead we get crazy arrogant Omegas, baby crazy people who parade dolls around in strollers, and the lonely and miserable Theodore, a history professor who openly admits that his profession is near futile in the current age.

Also I found it very strange that even though the U.K. is now under the totalitarian leadership of Xan, there isn’t any use of this authoritarian power to try and save mankind. Rather, things such as the mass suicides of the elderly are encouraged by Xan’s government, when you would at least think that a dictator faced with the extinction of mankind would at least use his crazy authoritarian people to force people to work to find a solution, even if it was futile, because I figured that’s how a dictator should/would operate it such a situation. Overall, the way P.D. James portrays a society as slowly embracing its walk to extinction was not at all how I expected. I would have expected either the world’s governments to forcibly ensure that every person would be working towards preserving and saving humanity or I would have expected most people to voluntarily work at finding a cure, even if it meant filling menial roles that supported the efforts of scientists and researchers.