The collapse of society
forces the Colter family to kill or be killed. To escape, they decide to
return to Jesse's childhood home of Haven. On the perilous journey they
encounter a deserted genetics lab. That evening the results of a
genetic experiment, five massive dogs working as a team, walk into their
camp. The dogs finally disappear back into the dark. On a second visit,
the dogs become friends of the family.
As they near Haven, a sheriffs
warning about a brutal gang, triggers a buried childhood memory for
Jesse and the gangs involvement in the death of his parents. The gang
decides to visit Haven...
My Review:
I suggest that people interested in this book do NOT read the second
half of the blurb above as it tells you all the main events in the plot,
which is disappointing. I read the whole blurb after I finished the
book so the plot was not spoiled for me.
Jesse and his family
have survived the apocalypse, a disaster that turned life back before
the industrial age, and a fatal cholera outbreak. Now they are trying to
survive, protect their town at all costs and do whatever needs to be
done to stop stangers taking what is there. When the raiders start to
target the town, even Jesse can't stop them and he plans to relocate the
family to his old home called Haven. On the dangerous journey, they
have a strange encounter with genetically modified dogs which could
prove to be a blessing for them.
This was a hard book to review.
I'm not really sure how to rate it because I had a fixed idea in my head
as to what the book would be like and when I read it, it was nothing
like I expected it to be. I was expecting a tale of extreme violence and
horror for some reason, and it wasn't like that at all, so I think it
will suit a lot of different types of readers. It is set in a grim
dystopian world where people were unprepared for a loss of power and the
gadgets that made life so easy and enjoyable. Now people try to steal
from others to survive and you must be prepared to kill to defend what
you have. It is a dark story with bits of violence but not what I'd
describe as extreme. It reminds me of the plot of a western where the
good guys are taking on the bad guys spreading terror in town,
especially the big showdown-except it is set in a dystopian world.
I
liked the characters. Jesse is an ordinary man who has done things he
is not proud of to protect his family. He is slowly teaching his sons
Mark and Paul how to survive and defend the family. His wife Sarah is
pregnant, which adds an element of danger to their travel plans. Also
there is daughter Lily, and Mark's friend Cole. Cole is a damaged boy
who is not fully stable and lives alone, but Jesse views him as part of
the family and capable with a gun. I found Cole very interesting as he
has suffered greatly in his life but is healing gradually because Jesse
believes in him, treating him as a son. There are also the characters of
Franklin and Hattie, who raised Jesse after his parents died, and are
looking after Haven. I love Franklin...he is like the grampa you've
always wanted, kind and full of wisdom. He was my favourite character.
The
best thing about this book are the dogs, which feature heavily in the
plot. The dogs find the family and decide to adopt the humans, coming
along on the journey to Haven. Boss, the leader of the dogs, is just so
very cool! I loved the relationship between Lily and the pregnant dog
she calls Daisy. It was very sweet!
The book is definitely about
the dynamics of two families-the human family, the dog family, and the
relationships within and between them. Cole is trying to shed his loner
image to fit in. Paul wants more responsibility so he can prove to his
father that he is not a child anymore. Sarah fears for her unborn child
in this dangerous new world. Jesse battles with the ghosts of his past
as he faces the bullies who ruined his childhood. It made the book
interesting and brought the characters to life, and you cared about the
good guys. It also explores the disturbing aspects within the bad guys
family, which I found interesting.
The one thing that slightly
disappointed me is that we don't get to follow all of these great
characters through the rest of the series. Instead, each book seems to
follow a particular generation of the Colter family, with new characters
each time. It's not really what I was wanting as I had expected to see
the family and the dogs throughout the series. Had I read the blurb for
book one, I would've known this but as I explained, I have a fear of
blurb spoilers!
Will I read the next book? Probably not, as I
think the rest of the series would be a rerun of this book with
different cast and none of my favourites. It was still a decent
dystopian read though.
A bomb has gone off,
leaving Samantha Higgins and her friends trapped in an old shelter. The
chaos filled government has assumed no survivors, no one is coming to
rescue them. It's up to them to get out. They have only each other and
Mike, the grumpy old veteran who pushed them into the shelter.
My Review:
This
book had a very confused writing style which made it frustrating to
read. In one line we were with Sam as the storyteller using 'I said' and
two lines later, it was 'Sam said'. Then it was back to 'I said'. I
can't tell you how annoying and irritating this was! If the author can't
decide on what way to tell the story, then the reader is going to find
it pretty strange to read. I just wasn't sure what she was trying to
achieve.
As for characters, let me put it this way-if I was stuck
in a nuclear bunker with Mia, I would either kill her or myself. I
hated her! She is a spoiled bitch who is used to stamping her foot and
getting her own way, and she obviously has no social skills. She moans
that a nine year old traumatized kid isn't doing her share of guard
duty, and complaining that the nuclear bomb is getting in the way of her
going shopping. WTF is wrong with her? A nuclear bomb has went off and
she doesn't seem to grasp that the world as she knows it is gone! When
you add in her bitching and rude remarks, the fact that she yells all
the time AND all her political rants, she drove me mental. I just could
not continue reading with a character in it who was so bad. I hoped that
she would go outside and get radiated but it didn't look like
happening, so I gave up.
I found this book disappointing.
The blight fell across
the face of the world like a shroud. It mutated so quickly that the
virologists never really had a chance.
America sealed its
borders, but it was too late. By the time the first North American
cannibalism clusters surfaced in Montreal, Winnipeg, and Vancouver, the
blight was already incubating in many northern cities.
A dozen weeks later, everything was gone.
And yet, survivors have
persisted. This is the story of the Keanes—an ordinary American family
from what used to be Portland, Oregon—and their not-so-ordinary story of
survival in the face of unthinkable human depravity.
My Review:
I
usually, but not always, like to see the apocalypse unfold from the
beginning. I don't generally like joining the survivors weeks, months or
years later when a lot of interesting stuff has already happened. But
in saying that, joining the apocalypse late is never a deal-breaker for
me. A good author in the genre can make it interesting either way.
This
book for me did not really deliver. 13 year old Allie, older brother
Billy and her father are trying to survive the blight while the kid's
mother is missing and assumed infected. I'm not totally sure what the
blight was-the impression given is that infected people become cannibals
intent on infecting others and feeding, but retaining intelligence,
tactics and human behaviour. The focus is on Allie's thoughts so I
didn't get a clear picture in my head of what the enemy looked like or
what they were doing. We don't really see much of them so it lacked the
real tension and excitement that I expect from this type of book.
Allie
is totally unbelievable as a 13 year old narrator. How many 13 year
olds start talking about the conscientious infected specter of
devolving??? Seriously, what is she talking about? I'm in my forties and
I didn't have a clue what this girl was on about. And bear in mind that
due to the blight, school is out forever, so where she got all the
fancy talk is beyond me. All of her language and expressions are much
older than her years but I didn't really get what she was talking about
at times. It was quite confused.
The overall structure of the
plot was also confused. Allie was rambling about all kinds of things
with no cohesion and it was frustrating to try and follow what was
happening. There was no structured timeline, and it was a bit all over
the place. It was also all tell and no show. We were getting a brief
description of events that had taken place with no drama or excitement. I
like to be there in the story as events unfold, scared as to what is
going to happen next-but it just isn't there in this book.
I
didn't get drawn into the story or feel any great emotion reading the
book. For me, the lack of show really spoiled any chance of getting into
the story. A bit disappointing!
They said it was extremely hard to get.
They said it wasn’t airborne.
They said there was nothing to fear.
They were wrong.
Seventeen-year-old
Elaan Woodson was supposed to be one of the lucky ones. She got one of
the few spots in the subterranean protection unit designed to keep
select scientists, military officials and their families safe from the
deadly virus ravaging the world above.
But, how lucky are you
really when the people in charge and those you love keep secrets from
you? While Elaan has heard that what you don’t know can’t hurt you,
she’s beginning to think otherwise. And she should…
Published: May 23rd 2016.
R.J. Crayton grew up in
Illinois and now lives in the Maryland suburbs of Washington, DC. She is
the author of the Life First series of novels, which includes Life
First and Second Life. Prior to writing fiction, Crayton was a
journalist, writing for newspapers, including the Wichita Eagle and
Kansas City Star. Crayton also worked for several trade publications,
including Solid Waste Report, Education Technology News, and Campus
Crime. Her first novels were published in 2013.
RJ's website: http://rjcrayton.com/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/rjcrayton
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/rjcraytonauthor
Google+: https://plus.google.com/100148365017122584860/posts
Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/rjcrayton/
Other books by the author include:
Strong-willed Kelsey Reed must escape tonight or tomorrow her government will take her kidney and give it to someone else.
In
this future forged by survivors of pandemics that wiped out 80 percent
of the world's population, life is valued above all else. The government
of "Life First" requires the mentally ill to be sterilized, outlaws
abortions and sentences to death those who refuse to donate an organ
when told.
Determined not to give up her kidney, Kelsey enlists
the help of her boyfriend Luke and a dodgy doctor to escape. The trio
must disable the tracking chip in her arm for her to flee undetected. If
they fail, Kelsey will be stripped of everything.
I have renamed my TBR Reading Challenge and changed it back to
Reading with Chuckles as it sounds better, especially at times when I
have no specific challenge running. So this is where I'll share what I
read and abandoned each week, and I'll give the odd update on the state
of my poor TBR! It does suffer at times...! The link under the book
takes you to the Goodreads page for that book so you can decide whether
to read it, and see my reviews when they are posted.
With my computer being out of action last weekend, I was sooo stressed and just didn't feel like reading at all, which was disappointing! I ended up watching TV until about Thursday so I never really got started on the books until the end of the week. I did look at a few but most were abandoned, sadly. I hope for better things this week. The Iron Witch was a reread to see if I wanted to finish the series, as I no longer bother reading YA. I was disappointed with Deep Thaw. I loved the first book in the series but the next two have been disappointing. I hate that!
FINISHED:
Donna Mahoney-The Iron Witch
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/8700602-the-iron-witch
ABANDONED:
Algor X Dennison-Deep Thaw
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/28097741-deep-thaw
Mark Leney-Extinction
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/15758255-extinction
Adam Millard-Dead Cells
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/12794068-dead-cells
Robin Tidwell-Reduced
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/23491073-reduced
