Persy -- The Passage by Justin Cronin

Are you ready for my round of excuses? Well, I was out of the country for almost a month, and then I got the chickenpox...

 

Science is cruising along, forever searching for the equivalent of the fountain of youth. Someone thinks they've found it... but is it what they think it is? Meanwhile, a young girl named Amy is abandoned to a group of nuns, and then kidnapped by the government. She becomes part of the experiments and while the world falls to ruins around her, she remains... Amy. And something a little bit more.

 

Almost a hundred years later, the story takes up with the small community of survivors who live inside a walled city with electric lights that will eventually shut off for good. And once that happens, no one will be able to stop the "smokes" from getting in and killing everyone.

 

The smokes are what happened when they tried spreading their fountain of youth. They got youth all right, but also a lot more. Superhuman abilities and a dose of insanity, and insatiable thirst and hunger for blood...

 

The little community's fragile peace is disturbed when Peter Jaxon runs into a Walker outside of the wall, a young girl who cannot speak with her mouth but somehow communicates exactly what she needs to say. No one knows where she came from, but it doesn't take Michael long to find the chip in her neck, put their years ago by the military. And it doesn't take him much longer to find a signal being sent out for her, asking for her return.

 

As the little community crumbles and the infected breach the walls, Peter leaves with a small crew to find the source of the signal, and, just maybe, other survivors.

 

This book took me over four months to read. That is a freaking long time. Geez. Admittedly, part of the problem was just crazy life stuff, but still. I mean, thinking about all the other things that have happened in the last four months, it's ridiculous to think that I've been reading the same book the whole freaking time.

 

Anyway. All that said, it makes it rather remarkable that I didn't just give up on the stupid thing. For some reason, I just kept on reading, kept re-checking it out at the library.

 

The beginning really drew me in, but the sudden drastic setting change really disoriented me, and for a long time I was really irritated about it. It took me a very long time to warm up to the new characters in the new setting. And once I had started to like them, Justin Cronin goes off and kills one of them and then has the other go through such a drastic character growth that he's not even the same character anymore. I'm still a little pissed off about that.

 

Two of the characters, Peter and Sara, really do have nice character growth. Peter was just "meh" in the beginning, but by the end he was awesome. Sara was "meeeeeeeh" and then she was "DON'T DIE, SARA." Theo and Maus, however, are just dull the whole way through.

 

The ending, OH THE ENDING. It was so sharp, so sudden, so unexpected, so... AAAUGH. It's amazing. I had to reread it five times to make sure I'd understood it correctly. Geez. Man. Wow. Golly what an ending. Major points for that one.

 

Justin Cronin has a very insensitive writing style. It's rather dry and there's not a whole lot of emotion in his characters (other than the occasional maniacal rage). It's not like I want an epic love story or anything, but something might be nice. Instead, you've got nothing. And then when he does put a bit of emotion in, it feels weird and...alien. Maybe he was just trying to sum up the world he created, but I don't really like it.

 

All in all it's... weird. The story and characters and writing is all just... weird. And long. Man. I would honestly only recommend this book to people who specifically like ridiculously long books. I don't think anyone else could get through it.

 

I also discovered that there's a sequel, and I'm not sure if I want to put my time and strength into that...

 

--Persy

 

You might like this if you: love ridiculously long novels; like horror vampire stories; like apocalyptic stories; don't much care about emotion (except for maniacal rage); or if you're dreaming about a mean fat woman and have an imaginary friend named Babcock.

Persy -- The Forest of Hands and Teeth by Carrie Ryan

Life is acceptable.

 

Sure, things aren't great. Mary's father is gone, her mother sits by the gate staring into the Forest of Hands and Teeth waiting for some sign of her husband, and her childhood friend Harry is getting a bit too close. But the Unconsecrated are still safely beyond the gate, and the villagers are surviving. Mary still tells herself the stories of her mother, stories of a time before the Unconsecrated and a neverending ocean.

 

But then Mary's mother does see her husband -- and gets too close. She is infected in an instant, and condemned to death. By the time Mary's brother Jed gets back, it's too late to say goodbye. Their mother is shoved outside the gate to join the rest of the Unconsecrated.

 

Life is hard.

 

Now orphaned, Mary expects to be taken in by her brother Jed and his wife Beth, but Jed stonily tells her that she is to be taken in by the Sisterhood, the religious women who rule the village. Harry doesn't come through on his interrupted proposal, and, with nowhere else to go, Mary is forced into the Sisterhood, where her world starts to turn upside down.

 

First of all, Travis, Harry's brother, is injured and taken to the Cathedral to be looked after. Mary has always been in love with him, and she now finds it harder than ever to give up on him (he's engaged to Cass, Mary's best friend) when she sees him every night.

 

And, to top it all off, Mary discovers the impossible: a stranger has come from outside the fence. Does this mean that they are not the last survivors of humanity? That there is an end to the Unconsecrated and the Forest of Hands and Teeth? That her mother's stories weren't just nonsense, but true? Is there really an ocean out there, as she's always dreamed?

 

Life is unacceptable.

 

Mary begins to unwind the lies and mysteries surrounding the Sisterhood and the limping little village. But before she can get very far, the unthinkable happens: the gates are breached, and the Unconsecrated flood the village. Mary only barely survives along with Harry, Travis, Jed, Beth, Cass, a little boy named Jacob, and Mary's dog Argos. The group escape the village and start along one of the many fenced paths leading into the Forest. Mary is confident that there is something waiting for them, something better. Something free. The ocean.

 

I had mixed feelings about The Forest of Hands and Teeth. I've also been rather oblivious about it. When it first came out, I declared it uninteresting and so didn't put it very high on my to-read list. And then when I finally picked it up the other day, I realized it was about zombies. ILOVEZOMBIES. Buuuut then I saw some of the tags it had on various book websites: die-heroine-die, stupid-love-triangle... you get the picture. My excitement faded.

 

Ten pages in: dull dull dull dull Mary is such a stupid whinypants.

Ten - thirty pages in: hey, this is pretty good.

Thirty - one hundred pages in: ugh, Mary.

One hundred - end of book: AAAAAAAAAAAGH.

 

This is one of those books with terrible chars. They're all stupid in their own special way, and I can't help but wonder if they all had some actual mental problems. But then again, seeing as how they live in a post-apocalyptic zombie world, I'll cut them some slack. I doubt I'd have all my lightbulbs screwed in just right if I were in their situation.

 

But this is also one of those books that is just so tragic and well-written and realistic that it somehow ends up beautiful in my head. I closed the book with a sense of awe and shock, completely exhausted from the trip. Talk about a climax done zombie-style. I even sort of ended up liking Mary towards the end. She's still not exactly smart, but I can see her being awesome in a kind of Resident Evil-one-woman-against-the-zombie-horde way.

 

This review reminding you of another book? Life As We Knew It, for example? Yeah, the books are ridiculously similar. They both follow the basic plot of an apocalypse with a character who is incredibly dull and yet resourceful. None of the main chars are all that interesting (though "Forest" had the advantage of a dog; I'll put you out of your misery and give you a small spoiler: Argos survives the entire book), but the writing is spectacular, and for the last half of the book, it's impossible to stop reading. Both books are the first in a series, and both sequels are about different characters. Both main characters are female with names beginning with M. If Carrie Ryan and Susan Beth Pfeffer aren't already friends, they should definitely get together and see what other tragedies they can come up with. Can you imagine what would happen if they wrote a book together?

 

"Forest" definitely isn't for everyone. I don't expect it to become the next great classic or anything, but I still encourage you to give it a try, as long as you aren't too incensed by stupid main chars or too sensitive to mental and physical pain. Yikesies.

 

You might like this if you: like Life As We Knew It by Susan Beth Pfeffer; like apocalypse/futuristic stories; love zombies and therefore must read/see/listen to anything related to zombies; enjoy amazing, unique writing styles (if you can call it unique... let's just say Pfeffer and Ryan are the only two with it); or if you feel like your life is not enough and that there's something else waiting for you beyond a deadly forest. Perhaps this book can give you examples of the does and don'ts (DO practice archery. DON'T be indecisive about your one true love).

Persy -- Life As We Knew It by Susan Beth Pfeffer

Everyone knew the meteor was coming and it wasn't a big deal. Everyone left their houses to watch it strike the moon. Some were scared, some excited, and some didn't care. But then the unexpected happens. The moon is knocked closer to the Earth, and Hell breaks loose -- slowly.

Tsunamis sweep the globe due to the tidal change, power frequently goes out, and that's just the beginning. Hundreds die in just moments. Others take a year to flicker out of existence.

During all this, Miranda, a teenager in Pennsylvania, is faithfully keeping a diary, starting a few days before the collision and continuing it on throughout the apocalypse. She takes us through months and months of survival along with her family: Mom, Jonny, Matt, Dad, Lisa (stepmother), Peter (Mom's boyfriend), and Mrs. Nesbitt (next-door neighbor).

I'm kind of hesitant to review this right now, because I JUST finished it a few hours ago, but I really want to. So I hope you're all prepared for some scattered and disconnected thoughts.

The beginning is really dodgy. I almost put it down countless times, but for some reason I kept on reading. When I was about halfway through, it started to get really good and really hard to put down.

At first, Miranda is the dullest person ever. She's not really annoying, and she's miserable, but she has some pretty good reasons, so I don't mind that so much. She just seems like a really boring person. And she never gets exactly interesting, but she grows so much and when I set the book down, it took me a minute to connect end Miranda with beginning Miranda. And yet, she's still the same character.

None of the characters are really likeable, but they aren't meant to be. It's a very realistic book, which means none of the characters are mind-blowingly awesome. That's just something you have to get over, but the suspense makes it easier.

And the ending is really good. I don't want to give anything away, so... I really can't say much, but I'm impressed with Susan Beth Pfeffer's ability to write a good, final ending. And yet, it's not final final. If you know what I mean.

The only thing that really really irritates me (besides the beginning) is the scene where they burn hair. Burning hair produces an awful smell. Geez.

The second book in the Last Survivors series,The Dead And The Gone, is about someone completely different going through the same disaster, so I'm looking forward to it. Even though I grew to almost enjoy Miranda, I'm glad we're done with her.

In short, I'd strongly recommend Life As We Knew It, but it requires some persistence in order to get past the beginning and into the good stuff.

--Persy

You might like this if you: like survival/apocalyptic novels; enjoy books like Unwind (Neal Shusterman, http://persyandarty.blogspot.com/2010/09/persy-unwind-by-neal-shusterman.html) or Gone (Michael Grant); like beautiful moon covers; or if you're worried about the moon and want a guide on how to survive the oncoming apocalypse.