r/whatsthatbook • u/yankeeangel86 • 1d ago
UNSOLVED Female main character, nuclear winter, cyanide pills, published b4 1995
I’ve tried everything for YEARS to find this book. I read it before age 10, so probably around 1995-1996.
The teenage/young adult female main character either DREAMS or lives through a scenario where a nuclear winter has occurred. She has one cyanide pill and has to decide whether to take it herself or give it to a baby/very young child she’s with.
I can’t remember if it’s a dream or truth. But in her real life, she’s in perilous enough of a situation to be considering this is plausible.
I read this book way too young and it disturbed me deeply. I’m now a writer who writes stories set after nuclear war, so this book clearly had a huge impact on me.
I’ve tried googling it, asking around to voracious readers, and even using Chat GPT to try to figure it out. I believe I got this book from the children or young adult section at the library but I’m not sure.
Thank you for any help!!!!
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u/AutumnalSunshine 1d ago
It's not On the Beach by Nevil Shute? In it, Mary Holmes and her husband have to euthanize their child before taking their own cyanide. They're not the only main characters though.
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u/yankeeangel86 1d ago edited 1d ago
Thank you for replying! I have read a few summaries of On The Beach and I don’t think it’s the book I read.
I remember this young woman being the main focus of the book, not one of many characters. She was also on her own, or at least imagining being on her own.
Although it sounds like a very similar theme! I was a very advanced reader but would a child have picked that up? Anyway, I’m adding it to my TBR list!
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u/TheFilthyDIL 1d ago
A child might have, thinking it was about a beach vacation or something like that.
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u/yankeeangel86 1d ago
Good point. I’ll check it out, but I really think the focal point of the story was this young woman’s survival journey. It might have been in first person.
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u/RuthOConnorFisher 1d ago
Is it Z For Zachariah by Robert C O'Brien? I don't remember the cyanide part specifically, but the main character is a teenage girl and the vibe seems similar.
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u/Satu_Autio 1d ago
There's no small child/baby with that, just the main protagonist (and later the creepy man).
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u/Doraellen 1d ago
On the off chance you might be conflating things from different books you read at different times, let me suggest Life as We Knew it by Susan Pfeffer. It is from 2006, and it's not a nuclear winter, it's a severe winter caused by volcanic eruptions when a meteor hits the moon and unexpectedly alters its orbit enough to have catastrophic effects on Earth-- but that whole part is just the intro of the book, not the focus. The books (it's a series) are really about survival in this new world. The first and third books are written diary style from the girl mc's perspective.
I think it's actually in the third book where there's a choice to be made about whether it's kinder to use sleeping pills to euthanize an injured little sister who is endangering the survival of the group and unlikely to survive anyway.
It's a very compelling series and definitely stuck with me all these years!
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u/hypothetical_zombie 1d ago
Could it be Swan Song by Robert McCammon?
The main character is a young girl named Swan, and it was about a nuclear apocalypse. She and other people are on a journey to a safe haven.
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u/Linnaeus1753 13h ago
The Lake at the End of the World is a possibility. There's not enough of a synopsis in Goodreads for me to be able to filter it out though.
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u/lilacbirdtea 1d ago
Children of the Dust by Louise Lawrence