I’m a sucker for dystopian stories of future Earth. When I heard that Tom Perrotta’s book The Leftovers was being made into a TV series on HBO, I thought I should get the book and read it already. It had been on my list since it was published in 2011. There have been other similar books I’ve considered — The Returned, by Jason Mott, which was made into a series on ABC. But Perotta’s had been on my list longest, so I got it and read it — in two sittings.

The story doesn’t dwell on the weird part of the story — that a couple percent of the world population disappeared one October day, with no trace. The story is about the folks who didn’t get usurped into wherever, about their grief when the people they are grieving for have met an unknown fate and might, possibly, return someday (for example, if Mr. Mott writes the sequel).

Which makes it less about some whoo-hoo weirdo thing that screwed the world up,and more about the things we all have to deal with in our lives as they exist in the real world: grieving, getting over loss, and worse, the loss of a child, or an entire family, knowing when to move on, parenting alone, parenting a teen (alone), marriages ending, finding your sexual mojo again afterwards.

I love when that happens with a book: you think you are going to get one thing, and it turns out you get something completely different. And I’m really happy I read the book and am foregoing the series. I like the note the book ended on. If the series goes on, there will have to be something beyond the written ending, and I can’t see that being fulfilling, no matter what I imagine they come up with.

It’s a good, quick read, but not schlocky. It’s quite literate, literary, perfect for snobs like me who still like to get their dystopian freak on.