My niece and I were talking about books at Thanksgiving and when she found out I hadn’t read “Z for Zachariah” by Robert C. O’Brien, she insisted I change that. (Her other must-read was “The Game-Players of Titan” by Philip K. Dick, about which I remain undecided.)

I do love post-apocalyptica, which she well knows. After reading this novel, my thought was it’s not a natural must-read for someone who’s 61. It’s rather simply written and the protagonist is a 16-year-old girl. (Side note: O’Brien didn’t complete this book himself. After his death, his wife and one of their daughters used his notes to finish it.)

Age alone wouldn’t give me pause. I loved Neil Gaiman’s “The Ocean at the End of the Lane,” whose protagonist is a 7-year-old-boy – NOT someone I expected to relate to. That story, though, had a lot more ideas going on (not to mention I fell completely in love with the Hempstock women).

At this point in my life, “Z” was like a beach read: engaging, quick, undemanding. It would have had greater impact if I had read it in junior high – plausible because it was published in 1974, when I was 10. And I remember enjoying O’Brien’s “Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH” as a young teen.

Verdict: Am I glad to add the story line to my post-apocalyptica mental library? Sure, so in that sense you could recommend it. But a must for my reading hours today? No.