The Watch by Emily Smith is a very difficult book to talk too much about. It opens as a standard post-apocalyptic tale of survivors in a town run as a fairly authoritarian regime. Outside the walls are violent raiders and a deadly virus and inside there is discontent brewing with the town leadership. Anyone familiar with post-apocalyptic pop culture will feel like they have been here before many, many times. But from the first few pages there are hints that this is may not be your usual post-apocalyptic fare.
The main character Kaya came to the town as a refugee and so is considered an “outsider”. She has no memory of her life before she was rescued on the outside by Wes, who she now considers to be her brother. Kaya, who has become the town blacksmith, wants more from her life but finds herself bound to marry the son of the town’s leader, an honour she does not want. And then Wes starts acting oddly, tragedy strikes and things start to get weird.
Suffice to say that The Watch is definitely dystopian but does not turn out to be the post-apocalyptic narrative that it first appears. That is to say, it is worth sticking through the elements that draw on those well-worn tropes just to see what Smith manages to do with them. The scenario that Smith builds is not without its flaws, and probably not worth thinking to hard about, but does provide to a compulsively twisty read.
The Watch by Emily Smith
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