First off, this is (and was, depending on when this is read,) one of six book from the Kindle First Reads for the month of August. After looking at the other books, I decided this was the one I was going to try out. I like the idea of the zombie apocalypse or "doomsday" books. (See the post about Flesh.)
Okay then, onto the review of this book. I love the cover. It's different enough and after reading the book it makes total sense. The way the book is described put me into a totally different mindset of expectations that what I personally gleaned from the book itself. This is where it gets tricky is my overall liking of the book.
The story has a prologue and then it goes back in time to the beginning for the three main characters. I was expecting the three characters to meet up quickly and that the story would have been about the three of them in this doomsday scenario. That is not what happened. It was over halfway into the novel before the events in the prologue to even happen.
I was tempted several times to put the book down and expect not to finish it. I felt that it was a bit on the boring side in several places. However, this is one of the parts that I have to rationalize and give a good solid 4 to 5 stars on and that's the way it was written. Now I'm sure there may be some confusion seeing as I just said the opposite, but what I mean is that, I couldn't stop thinking about the book. Even as I questioned why I was reading the book and my feelings about said book, I either couldn't put it down or I thought about it and needed to know the ending.
Having read several other reviews since I finished the book, I know I'm not the only one out there that had varied thoughts and feeling on what was written on the page. Which is a good thing.
So onto major spoilers.
This is the warning I'm giving.
So this book is about Dev, Lucy, and Marcus, all 16 years old. Lucy and Marcus find each other pretty quickly after the event where basically all life just is gone. There is no explanation as to what happened or why it happened. What is known or what is heavily implied, is that the only survivors are ones that were just about to end their lives. At the end of the book, the event is never explained with the story being open ended.
Dev was the most explained and fully fledged character and most of the book has to do with his survival. He has Asperger's and he decided to stay in his home and make his neighborhood into a fortress. The author goes into detail about Dev's thought processes that at times seemed overkill, but we can understand Dev really well. Including his rationalization of needing eggs for breakfast.
Lucy and Marcus have their backstories explained rather quickly and without the fine detail. In the end Marcus' story ultimately doesn't matter due to his rather quick and off the page death. (I was actually shocked when this happened.) Lucy ended up pregnant with her best friend's baby and she discovers that he killed himself, which incidentally was what she was going to do once she found out. It's at this point there is a lot of mentions of abortion because she doesn't want the baby and religion. She loses the baby during the event, but ends up becoming pregnant by Marcus.
Marcus was a character that wasn't very likable in a lot of ways. And I was shocked and saddened by his death because of the baby, and the few things he did to become likable. In the way I read the book, he created a path for Dev. As did Lucy and the baby.
Everything that happened pushed Dev into feeling something. Feelings weren't something he could understand in the book and every event seemed to create a little bit more understanding in his mind. From taking in a dog he really liked, to having to kill him due to rabies, to leaving his home in the end to search more survivors with Lucy and the child they raised together.
There were a lot of political mentions and various other bits here and there that maybe wasn't needed. Though looking at the world through the eyes of the characters this can be explained.
There is also a wave of rats and wild pigs that show up throughout the book. After some thought to this, I view the animals as the driving force to keep the characters moving or for Dev, to hole up and create a self imposed cage of sorts. A cage that he ends up leaving in the end.
Breaking down the book and looking at it in different lights makes the book intriguing. I didn't find it very humorous, though it is thought provoking. Within the culture of today, the zombie apocalypse is thought about and plans are made on how to survive it. There are no zombies in this book. It's the world.
I enjoyed reading about how one would survive with nothing was available anymore. This was about survival and how to go about it. This book doesn't gloss over the gore that's for sure.
Now that I've written up this very odd and different review, I still don't know what I truly think of the book. Do I want to know what happens when they leave at the end? Yes. So depending on what I'm looking at to review my range is between a 4 to a 5ish. Let's just say that this book will stick with me and has occupied my thoughts.
I have told people about this book and I can only say that I'm not sure how I feel about the book, but I couldn't put it down. It's a book that you either want to read and experience or it's not. The determination of how you perceived this story will be different from mine.
