The Hard Tomorrow

Is "pre-apocalyptic" a word? There are books all over our shelves that imagine futures after various disasters, but Davis's graphic novel taps into a feeling that's more intensely present: how to move forward when you feel the horror of the apocalypse just beginning. Hannah is a home health-care worker in an unnamed city, living in a trailer with her boyfriend while he smokes weed with a prepper friend and, relatedly, barely makes progress on the house they dream of building for themselves, and for the baby they are trying to have. Amid protest, violence, sloth, and death lives a hope that's so beautiful you're terrified to see it enter the world.