Review: Ashen Winter by Mike Mullin

Synopsis:
It’s been over six months since the eruption of the Yellowstone supervolcano. Alex and Darla have been staying with Alex’s relatives, trying to cope with the new reality of the primitive world so vividly portrayed in Ashfall, the first book in this series. It’s also been six months of waiting for Alex’s parents to return from Iowa. Alex and Darla decide they can wait no longer and must retrace their journey into Iowa to find and bring back Alex’s parents to the tenuous safety of Illinois. But the landscape they cross is even more perilous than before, with life-and-death battles for food and power between the remaining communities. When the unthinkable happens, Alex must find new reserves of strength and determination to survive.

Publication Date: October 14, 2012
Genre: Young Adult, Post Apocalyptic, Adventure
Source: Thanks so much to Tanglewood Press for making this title available through Netgalley!


Review:
First off, what do you think of that cover? Amazing, yes? I like it even more after finishing this book. I almost had a heart attack when I saw this on Netgalley because I loved the first one so much.  The awesome male POV and the way that I really felt the cold and the hunger right along with Alex and Darla carried into this second novel as well.

In Ashfall Alex is finding his way in the new world after the eruption.  He's still figuring things out.  In Ashen Winter they've been living this hard life a bit longer and you can really notice the changes in Alex from one book to the next. 

As would be expected after an apocalyptic event there are groups struggling against each other for survival. Trusting somebody means putting your life in their hands and most of the people Alex runs into aren't the type that you want putting their hands on you.  Most groups and communites of survivors aren't friendly to outsiders, but other gangs of people are just plain criminal, preying off of anybody weaker.  And you better not trust in the Government either because they sure as heck don't have your best interest at heart in this case.

It's these human interactions that cause most of the problems for Alex and Darla as they look for Alex's parents.  Hunger, cold, fatigue.  All a factor, but those play second string to the crazy-ass people dominating  the world.  I would probably end up buried under a pile of snow and dead within days of something like this happening :) Luckily the characters in this book aren't such horrible wimps!

I felt like Alex was really just taking hit after hit in Ashen Winter. Talk about some bad freaking luck. I think it really proved his character and what he's willing to go through for the people he loves.

A ton of great action and tension throughout this one. I love being immersed in this world and was sad to reach the end. The mark of a great book!

Review: This Is Not a Test by Courtney Summers

Synopsis:
It’s the end of the world. Six students have taken cover in Cortege High but shelter is little comfort when the dead outside won’t stop pounding on the doors. One bite is all it takes to kill a person and bring them back as a monstrous version of their former self.

To Sloane Price, that doesn’t sound so bad. Six months ago, her world collapsed and since then, she’s failed to find a reason to keep going. Now seems like the perfect time to give up. As Sloane eagerly waits for the barricades to fall, she’s forced to witness the apocalypse through the eyes of five people who actually want to live.

But as the days crawl by, the motivations for survival change in startling ways and soon the group’s fate is determined less and less by what’s happening outside and more and more by the unpredictable and violent bids for life—and death—inside.

When everything is gone, what do you hold on to?

Publication Date: June 19, 2012
Genre: Young Adult, Post-Apocalyptic, Zombie
Source: My own Tower of Books


Review:
Not since I read The Book Thief over four years ago have I been so in awe of somebody's writing. I'm not saying the writing is the same as in that book, but it is so totally different from any other style/approach to a story and it is freaking amazing. The words 'verbal vomit' come to mind. BUT not in a bad way at all.  It's as if the author can harness the insane way our own brains work and think through things in our heads, where only we can hear, and that's how she writes for the MC in this book, Sloane. The emotions in it are so truthfully deep. Purely genius and fan-frickin-tastic to read.

Sloane (wishing I could have a fourth child to use this name on :) is living with her father when the world goes to hell. And it all goes wrong on the day she was planning to kill herself to be free from her abusive father and also to be free from the ache and betrayal of her sister leaving her there with her dad to basically suffer his abuse alone.

The progression of her character in this book is beautiful and poetic to read. She finds herself in a group of survivors inside of her old school. The problem being that she has never wanted to survive, the zombie outbreak hasn't shattered her world like it has all the others because she's never felt like she had something to live for anyway. As she's narrating the story I noticed that at first she's always talking about everyone else, narrating what's going on while she watches. She doesn't really get involved but as she starts trying to come to terms with the things warring within her she gradually becomes more present in her first person narrative. If that makes sense :) I was seriously in awe of Courtney Summers writing in this, like it was blowing my mind as to how someone could even write something so amazing.

I should definitely mention that this book will be appealing to absolutely everyone. Yes, I'm going to stand by that blanket statement. You don't like zombies? Cool, because this book isn't about zombies. You love zombies? Great, because this book has those. It's a book about people and emotions and motivations and so many other things...that just so happens to have zombies in it as the catalyst for all those other things to be revealed.

I want to also bring up how much I love the cover and title of this book.  The cover is just straight up awesome.  And I should point out that you'll be seeing some more blood spattering on the pages within the book as you go along. Now that title. Before reading the book I just assumed that it was playing into the fact that they were trapped in a school and it's not a test, get it? More literally it's taken from a radio broadcast in the book that repeats 'This Is Not a Test' over and over. But once you've read the whole thing it takes on such a new meaning in regards to Sloane and how she deals with the entire situation.

Obviously I loved this book and I think everyone should read it and love it too :)

Review: The Weepers: The Other Life by Susanne Winnacker

Synopsis:
3 years, 1 month, 1 week and 6 days since I’d seen daylight. One-fifth of my life.

Sherry and her family have lived sealed in a bunker in the garden since things went wrong up above. Her grandfather has been in the freezer for the last three months, her parents are at each other’s throats and two minutes ago they ran out of food.

Sherry and her father leave the safety of the bunker and find a devastated and empty LA, smashed to pieces by bombs and haunted by ‘Weepers’ - rabid humans infected with a weaponized rabies virus.

While searching for food in a supermarket, Sherry’s father disappears and Sherry is saved by Joshua, a boy-hunter. He takes her to Safe-haven, a tumble-down vineyard in the hills outside LA, where a handful of other survivors are picking up the pieces of their ‘other lives’. As she falls in love for the first time, Sherry must save her father, stay alive and keep Joshua safe when his desire for vengeance threatens them all.

Publication Date: May 15, 2012
Genre: Young Adult, Paranormal, Post Apocalyptic, Zombie
Source: Thanks to Marshall Cavendish for making this title available through Netgalley.


Review:
I have to say I agree with alot of the reviews I read about this book. A decently entertaining read that really gets interesting the last 20 pgs or so. I liked the book alright, but never had any 'wow' moments. The plot is interesting, especially once you find out the history behind the virus that has changed so many people and how it has affected the rest of the world.

I know alot of people could go either way as far as romance is concerned in their books. But I find that I will like a book exponentially more if it does have romance at least threaded throughout. There is some of that in The Weepers but it's not the focus of the book. Like I said, that's not a problem for some people.

There were only a few things that really stood out to me that I disliked. First, the MC's name is mentioned so few times that I had to look it up to even write it out in this review. (It's Sherry btw) The second thing is just all the counting of days. Sherry lived in a bunker with her family for years and the total days is something like 1,141. For me, when I see a number written like that I have to say it all out. One thousand, one hundred forty-one. It kept jumping me out of the book. That might not bother anybody else but me...

I really liked the story of how The Weepers came to be. I think it's pretty unique as far as zombie-esque stories go. I liked the fact that these infected humans still have some sort of intelligence which makes them a bit more daunting to face down. I really liked Tyler's character but wished there was more of him in it...which is a distinct possibility for the next book.

All in all, this is an entertaining and quick read. I can see the series getting more and more interesting as it goes.

Review: H10N1 by M. R. Cornelius

Synopsis:
A deadly influenza virus rages out of control. There is no easy-fix vaccine. No eleventh-hour containment. Only death. With no workforce, power plants have been shut down, police and fire departments have collapsed, crops lie unpicked in the fields.

When Dr. Taeya Sanchez finds herself unceremoniously dismissed from an emergency medical facility in New York, she decides to steal the hospital's armored van for a midnight escape. Unfortunately, Rick DeAngelo, a driver for the hospital, has already stocked the van for his own getaway.

Thrown into an unfriendly alliance, these two must pick their way across the dangerous wasteland of America in search of a safe haven. And as the miles roll by, they discover that the living should be feared much more than the festering corpses out there.



Review:
It was pretty much predetermined that I would like this book. It has a few key things that I really love in my books. Pandemic that kills off a huge percentage of the population? Check. A social/economical/political collapse? Yep. A fight for survival against natural and human elements? Um, yes. (That actually sounds pretty morbid that I like all that :) I am happy to say that H10N1 came through and delivered on my high hopes.

When the book starts it really feels like you are getting a glimpse into how things would look if a horrible strain of flu came through and decimated the population, mutating as it went. I had read a sample of the Prologue and was like, 'Must. Read. More.' That prologue alone will hook you in.

The book is told from the dual perspectives of Dr. Taeya Sanchez and Rick DeAngelo. They rub each other the wrong way at the beginning. When they are both making their late night getaway from the medical facility they both were working at, they have to put aside their prejudices and work alongside one another. I really loved how their relationship evolved and they each grew individually as the plot progresses.

This book was well-written and paced with a great plot and interesting characters. H10N1 really holds its own with the 'end of the world as we know it' or 'pandemic' books. If this is a genre you enjoy then I highly suggest giving this one a shot.

Publication Date: April 12, 2011
Genre: Adult Fiction, Post-Apocalyptic
Source: Thanks so much to the author M. R. Cornelius for my review copy!

Find out more about H10N1 on Goodreads, Amazon or B&N.

Review: Ashfall by Mike Mullin

Synopsis:

Under the bubbling hot springs and geysers of Yellowstone National Park is a supervolcano. Most people don't know it's there. The caldera is so large that it can only be seen from a plane or satellite. It just could be overdue for an eruption, which would change the landscape and climate of our planet.

Ashfall is the story of Alex, a teenage boy left alone for the weekend while his parents visit relatives. When the Yellowstone supervolcano erupts unexpectedly, Alex is determined to reach his parents. He must travel over a hundred miles in a landscape transformed by a foot of ash and the destruction of every modern convenience that he has ever known, and through a new world in which disaster has brought out both the best and worst in people desperate for food, water, and warmth. With a combination of nonstop action, a little romance, and very real science, this is a story that is difficult to stop reading and even more difficult to forget.

Review:

I was really looking forward to reading this book. I love books, movies, tv shows, video games, etc. that are in post-apocalyptic settings. Ashfall exceeded my expectations even though I had set them pretty high. This book feels so real that I kept forgetting it wasn't actually a first-hand account of actual events.

It's written from the view-point of a teenage boy named Alex and starts off with him giving us a small glimpse into what his life is like 'pre-eruption', as it is called in the book. I was hooked from the very first paragraph. For the most part, we get to know Alex as he adapts and survives in a world that is strange and dangerous. His family was out of town when the eruption happened, and he makes a promise to himself that he will find them. The eruption forces the remaining population into a survival situation. The results are what you could actually expect when there is no law and nobody to keep the peace. Alex sees and experiences some horrible things.

It is no small feat for him to travel hundreds of miles on foot across a now-dangerous landscape. Just reading about how physically exhausting the actual walking (and skiing) across the deep ash and snow made me feel Alex's pain. Eventually he happens upon a girl, Darla, and her mother. Alex is on the verge of death when he stumbles into their barn. His relationship with Darla grows and thrives even in the cold, harsh world they have found themselves in. They end up saving each other, not just from physical harm but from the mental devastation of living through something so life-changing.

I literally could not put this book down, and was sad to come to the last page. Luckily, there is another book coming out in Fall 2012, Ashen Winter. I can't wait to immerse myself back into the world that Mike Mullin has created.

Publication Date: October 14, 2011

Genre: Young Adult, Post-Apocalyptic

Source: Thank you to Netgalley.com and Tanglewood Press.