The novel won the Arthur C. Clarke Award in May 2015, beating novels including The Girl with All the Gifts and Memory of Water.[21] The committee highlighted the novel's focus on the survival of human culture after an apocalypse, as opposed to the survival of humanity.[21] The novel won the Toronto Book Award in October 2015.[22]
The novel was also a finalist for the National Book Award, ultimately losing to Phil Klay's short story cycle Redeployment.[23] It was also a finalist for the PEN/Faulkner Award,[24] as well as the Baileys Women's Prize for Fiction.
