We Burned So Bright (publication day April 28, 2026) by T.J. Klune is a short standalone dystopian fantasy that also happens to be uplifting, despite being set at the end of the world because a black hole is coming to swallow the earth.
As the book opens, 72-year old Rodney and 78-year old Don, a gay couple who have been married for decades, decide that it’s time to take a road trip in an old RV across the United States, from the northeast to the Pacific Northwest, to “take care of a promise” that they had made, because the world will be ending in 30 days when the black hole comes. Klune is very cagey about the promise until the end of the book–we know that they have to do something very specific at a particular location, but we don’t know exactly what it is,
With the end of the world looming, people seem to have gone crazy, but Don and Rodney are careful. They take back roads and avoid cities. But they still meet people that scare them, and people who make them proud to be human.
As Uranus, Jupiter, Mars, and finally the moon are sucked into the black hole, weird things are happening on Earth–for one, gravity is not the same. And that actually seems to help these two elderly men do what they have to do, and we find out why. It’s heartbreaking but necessary. I loved the characters, their relationship, and some of the people they meet along the way. It’s full of quotable passages and wisdom, and completely weight-neutral. I loved it, but I love emotional books about grief, and life.
Reading While Fat 