Sunrise in a Darkened World

Alex and Darla are survivors in every way possible, but in a world that is dangerous in every way possible, it is hard to maintain hope of one day returning to living, not surviving. In Mike Mullin's Ashfall series finale, Sunrise, he brings the incredible story home in a way that couldn't be more perfect. 

After setting off to find his parents, losing Darla to flensers (cannibals), being a prisoner in a FEMA camp, finding his parents, finding Darla, and losing his father in the battle to save her, Alex knows all to well how ugly this world can be. He has returned to his uncle's farm outside Warren with his damaged mother, Darla, and a few others in tow. What he returns to is just as grim as his travels. The neighboring town, Stockton, is being run by a ruthless maniac named Red. Red might be insane, but he smart. That level of intelligence combined with such insanity is a dangerous combination. When Stockton takes all Warren's food stock including enough pork to last the town for the foreseeable future, Alex knows he must get it back. Unfortunately, the mayor of Warren is more concerned with his own ego than a smart strategy, and he leads his people into an ambush. When Alex takes charge and manages to recover most of the pork, he has not only made an enemy in Red, but also in the mayor. 

Alex understands his uncle's farm is too isolated, unprotected, and dangerous, but so is Warren. He tries to convince the town to protect itself, but he meets nothing but opposition. While he wants to protect everyone he can, he realizes he isn't going to risk his own life or the lives of those he loves trying to reason with people who don't want to listen. Alex is determined to find a way to increase his food production, create a surplus even, and find a way where they can survive without having to fear for their lives each and every day. What he doesn't expect is that in this new world, it doesn't matter how old you are. People look up to you, respect you, and put their lives in your hands if they believe in you. And it is hard not to believe in a young man like Alex.

When I first read Ashfall, I was blown away. Knocked on my literary behind! This story was absolutely phenomenal; in a genre full of stories just like it, it was a shining star. Ashen Winter was just as striking. And now Sunrise has left me devastated. It's over! Sunrise was such an impossibly perfect ending to this series that I am sobbing in my cocoa about the fact that we will never have another Ashfall story again! It is like Mullin knew exactly what I wanted from this story and delivered it like a true master. I mean, I knew this man was a heavyweight in the genre, but he just elevated himself to a class unto his own with this finale!

The progression of the story through the three books starts with Ashfall as the catastrophe novel. Then Ashen Winter is the survivor's novel. And finally, Sunrise is the novel of hope, healing, and moving on. That isn't to say there isn't a graphic and violent portrayal of life in this post-apocalyptic world, because this book is just as shocking and horrific as the first two, but it has a different message. This book brings the series full circle into a place where you wanted and needed it to go. It also allows the children of this new world to grow into their shoes the way they were meant to. Alex was just a bratty kid when the volcano blew. By the end, he is a man to be proud to stand beside. It was an amazing transition, and I feel honored to have witnessed it in this character, among others. But alongside Alex and Darla and the others you come to love and hold your breath when they find themselves in precarious situations, you are also confronted with the absolute worst examples of society. It is disturbing to see people act like these do, but you know as well as I do that they would be there, most likely profiting, in a post-apocalyptic world. 

Mullin's prowess as a storyteller, however, is that despite the dark and ugly side of humanity, you still find hope and humanity around every corner. Sure people are skeptical, but they can still turn out to be good people, great even, when given the opportunity. As dark as this series can get, there is always that restored faith in humanity that brings you back for more. When I got my hands on this book, I was so excited I abandoned a book I was 2/3 finished with. This series has made such an impact on me that I refused to wait even a day before starting it. I waited long enough between the last book and this one, that I couldn't wait another minute! So, thank you, Mr. Mullin. You brought to our shelves a story that is sure to cause irreparable damage because nothing will ever be able to live up to its greatness! 

Ride the Wave of the Living

When you are in a book slump, you need something exciting to really grab you and force you to plow through with the excitement and enthusiasm you are struggling to find in other books. For me, The Living by Matt de la Pena was just that book. Need a little excitement in your life? Look no further! This will grab you like a tsunami, and won't let go until its ready. 

Shy took the job on the cruise line to make some money this summer. His mother was worried about him, but how much could go wrong on a cruise ship? Besides, with the Romero virus going around, home wasn't so safe either. Having watched his grandmother succumb to the disease, he doesn't think he could watch someone he loves go through that again. Life on the cruise ship isn't so bad. You work a lot catering to the ridiculously wealthy, but most are nice enough. When a strange man throws himself off the side of the boat, Shy is the one who tries to save the man. But after a cryptic "death bed confession", Shy loses the man to the sea. Now, a few weeks later, a strange man is on the new cruise and everyone keeps telling Shy the man is looking for him. Shy can only avoid him for so long. Especially when he has no idea what the man would want from a simple poor kid from California on the Mexican border. 

When word gets around that something catastrophic has happened to the US, Shy can't imagine the state of devastation his home is in. An earthquake like no other ravaged the West Coast and has left most of the states of California, Oregon, and Washington completely devastated. Everyone on the ship is reeling from the news, but they have no idea what is about to come their way. With an earthquake that close to the coast, a tsunami is bound to be close on its heals. Cruise ships are built to withstand incredible storms, but this might just be the monster that pushes it to the limit. There are a lot of people on the boat Shy cares about, but when it comes to life and death, it is amazing the choices a person will have to make. 

Sometimes a book that runs at this break-neck pace is too fast for you. When you are in a book slump like I was, or if you are looking for a book for a student who gets "bored" too quickly, this is a perfect choice. In hindsight, the story had a LOT of different elements that seemed almost too much: the virus, the earthquake, the tsunami, the island, the lost at sea. Any one or two could have made for a great story, but all together it can be a bit overwhelming. Still, I was totally in the mood for this kind of story. I needed a book where every single page was stuffed with intrigue and action. And I got it with The Living! This was truly an action-packed story, and it was exactly the medicine I needed to pull me out of my book slump. 

Shy is a really great main character. He is just a good kid, a normal kid. He loves his family. He mourns the loss of his grandmother and worries about the rest of his family and the virus. It is also great to see more and more diversity in YA lit. There have been a lot of articles lately about the "white washing" of YA lit, so I am always happy when I see diversity effortlessly injected into the genre. We want our YA lit to reflect its readers who are diverse themselves! I really enjoyed Shy's character, the break-neck pace of the story, and everything about it. The one this I didn't enjoy is knowing I am going to have to wait a year to read the next book. It really left us on a cliffhanger and I don't know how long I can wait to see where the story goes! This is an excellent book for a struggling, mature reader who has never finished a book. Have a student who claims they hate reading because its "boring"? Pick up The Living. I promise you they won't be bored! 

After the Ash Begins the Winter

Alex and Darla made it through the insanity following the volcano in Yellowstone blowing, but they were far from unscathed. In Mike Mullin's Ashen Winter, Alex and Darla will risk their lives again (and again and again) for each other and for a little sense of normalcy in the madness they now call life.

The world is cold. With a year long winter after the eruption, the snow continues to fall and people struggle to stay alive, let alone stay warm. Even though they feel relatively safe at their aunt and uncle's house, there is something missing: Alex's parents. Before he and Darla arrived, his parents head left to look for him, heading out into the post-apocalyptic wake left by the volcano. Now Alex is convinced he has to go look for them. Knowing all the dangers out there, he is terrified to think of his parents all alone searching for him. Despite trying to convince Darla to stay behind, she won't leave Alex's side. Together they set off on a fool's mission against all kinds of monsters and demons... unfortunately, these are the incredibly human variety.

They don't make it far before they encounter trouble. The world has taken a deep turn for the worse and  the reality of that fact doesn't take long to soak in. They don't take unnecessary risks, but still, it isn't long before Alex's inability to sit by and watch an ambush of cannibals against innocent people leads to an accident where Darla is shot, falls off an overpass, and lands on top of the cannibals' truck. Alex will do anything to get Darla back, even if it means abandoning hope of finding his parents. But his travels are dangerous and give him an unwanted view of the way the world is, complete with kidnapping, rape, slavery, and most repulsive, the trafficking in human meat. Will Alex save Darla, or is he doomed to lose everyone he loves in this frozen, ash-covered world?

I must warn you that if you aren't prepared for a dark post-apocalyptic story, this isn't the series for you. It is brilliant and realistic, but it is certainly mature. If you question a student's ability to handle this dangerous and violent world, I would save it for when they are a little bit older. That being said, this is an amazing portrayal of what could really happen if the supervolcano were to blow. Do you think it would be all kittens and tulips? Then you would probably be one of the first to go at the hands of flensers or bandits. So, I have to say that while I would choose the student to pass this series onto carefully, I would be sure the right student would be just as enthralled with it as I was.

Since the first book, the situation has gotten worse. And why wouldn't it? Are our governments really so selfless that they wouldn't tuck and run as everything swirled down the toilet? But the thing I love the most is these characters. Even though Alex wants nothing to happen to Darla, he can't seem to help himself from sticking his neck out for other people. And there are others, too. People they come across who are willing to help others, and it is those people who will struggle with this new world the most. They will crave teh morals of a world that has passed and despise the new world order that makes them a dying species. It is a terrifying and fascinating examination of the human species, and I will bet you won't be able to stop thinking about it when you finish the book. I know I couldn't. So if you are a fan of serious post-apocalyptic literature, pick up this series. You won't be sorry. But you might be terrified. I certainly was.

A Monument to Apocalyptic Fiction

You know what you would say to your loved ones if it was the last time you were going to see them, but what if you didn't know that time was the last time? In Monument 14, Emmy Laybourne takes a group of kids from a school bus (or two), throws them into a new, very dangerous world, and hopes they can survive.

Dean boards the high school bus and his younger brother, Alex, gets on the elementary and middle school bus. They head off on just another day of school and routine, but this isn't just another day. On their way to school a freak hailstorm takes out Dean's bus. The driver is dead, as are some kids who were trapped and beaten to death by hail, but the remaining kids know they have to get out. Through the heroics of an ancient bus driver, the surviving kids find themselves trapped in the Greenway department store. When the bus driver heads off to find help, she leaves the kids behind, not knowing just how alone they will soon be. 

The hail storm was just the beginning of the after effects of a giant tsunami. When a major earthquake hits, the kids assume they made it through until a chemical spill from NORAD. The chemical reacts differently in people with different blood types, killing some, sterilizing others, and making another percent of the population go stark raving mad and murderous. The kids are lucky enough that the emergency gates on the store closed, sealing them inside, but what is on the outside wants to come in. While the kids have enough supplies to survive in the department store, there are scarier things out there than they can imagine safe inside the store. 

First, let me just assure you that there are no zombies going on here. Homicidal psychopaths, yes. Zombies? No. I wanted to get that out in the open, because the description of the people affected by the chemical sounded to me a lot like zombies, but they aren't. They are alive, reasoning, thinking loons who want to tear everyone and everything apart they can get their hands on. Scarier than the zombies if you ask me! But nevertheless, no zombies here. 

The story is quite interesting story, especially on the heels of a similar story I just read called No Safety in Numbers. They are very different books as this is apocalyptic and that was a terrorist plot that led to a quarantine, but there are still some similarities, like being trapped in a mall/department store. The thing that sets this story apart is the lack of adults. The older kids try to hold things together, but since they are children themselves, it doesn't always work. Some kids started dipping into the pharmacy, others gorged themselves on candy and ice cream. A couple of the older kids paired off, little kids wanted their mommies, and all of them grew more and more scared. It actually felt very real in regards to how the kids all reacted to the situation. 

My one skepticism surrounded the chemical agent released from NORAD during the quake. I am not sure how a chemical could react so differently based on blood type, but I have learned not to question these things too much and to give fiction a little wiggle room for creative license. So I let that go and just enjoyed the story. It was written in first person narrative and sometimes the story felt very much like it was slipping out of the mouth of a young adult... perhaps a little too much at times? With this writing style comes a few choppy sentences or disjointed thoughts where I had to go back and reread to get the full gist of what was happening. But all in all, it wasn't distracting most of the time, so I was able to really enjoy the story. I found the story exciting and engaging and really want to know what happens next. I desperately hope this is the beginning of a series because otherwise Laybourne's "Got some 'splainin' to do!" The ending had a feeling of finality while still being abrupt and leaving you hanging. I don't know how she concluded the story that way, but she did, and it left me dying to know more!

Struck by Lightning

Thunderstorms can either terrify you or fascinate you. But what if they were drawn to you? What if you were basically a conductor for the storms, and the threat of lightning and what you could do with it was so terrible, you moved to Los Angeles, a place where lightning and thunder rarely come? In Jennifer Bosworth's Struck, we watch a young girl who runs from the very energy that runs through her veins.


Mia and her mother and brother, Parker, survived the earthquake that all but destroyed Los Angeles, but they haven't done so unscathed. Their mother teeters on the edge of full blown mental illness, Parker is struggling to find his path and Mia is struggling to keep her family fed and alive. When the school is finally reopened, they struggle with the idea of leaving their mom home all day, but one full, square meal is more than just slightly tempting. At the school, though, Mia encounters two groups of people who want to get their hands on her.


The Followers are devoted to Prophet- the man who claims to have seen the end of the world and claims to be able to save those who devote themselves to him. The Seekers are people with the Spark (ability to harness and use energy like Mia) who devote their lives to stopping Prophet from ending the world. Mia doesn't want anything to do with either side, but a mysterious boy named Jeremy makes her reconsider everything she thought she knew. Now, with Parker going with the Seekers and her mother obsessed with the Prophet, Mia has to figure something out to save her family, especially with the storm of a lifetime heading straight for her. 


I have to say this was a strange and sometimes confusing story, but I can't say I didn't like it. In fact, I really did like it, but it took me right to the end with some big questions and confusions. The clash between the cult-like Followers and the avenger-like Seekers was an interesting one, but you don't get to really know the true story behind either. Well, that's not entirely true. You get more about the Followers, but the Seekers are still left a strange little mystery. There was enough of their back story to at least help you to understand what was happening, but it still left me scratching my head at times. I also wanted to know more about the Spark. What caused this? How many people have it? What are the side-effects? There were quite a few unanswered questions by the end of the story.


Still, it was very interesting. I loved the idea of the Spark and the people who can harness and attract energy like the lightning. Mia was clearly unhappy with her power, but seeing her meet others like herself was fascinating. Unfortunately, you didn't get enough time to see that interaction before everything spun out of control again. I wonder if Bosworth plans on continuing this story. It ends with a good deal of finality, but there could be room to continue if she wanted to. This is a great story for the typical young adult sector, late middle school through high school students. There is a hint of the supernatural, and a good deal of creepy cults and depressing disaster, but Mia is a character you want to learn more about. So consider continuing, Bosworth! I want to see more of Mia and Jeremy!

Is There Dark Inside All of Us?

Have you ever thought about the evil that lives inside you? Do you have a dark side? What about your friends, family, and neighbors? Now imagine that evil was let loose upon the world. Which side would you be on? The hunted Light or the hunter Dark? In Jeyn Roberts' Dark Inside you will find yourself asking those very questions.

Mason's mother's fatal car accident saved him. He ran to the hospital the minute he heard and shortly after a group of people walked into his high school with bombs, killing almost everyone. Aries survived the earthquake that toppled her bus and killed almost everyone inside, but she doesn't know if she will survive the night with the crazy people on the street trying to murder everyone they come into contact with. Clementine runs from the church where her parents and the entire town is murdered by men they grew up with, but they are still hunting her. All she can think about is her brother Heath in college on the West Coast- the same West Coast that was wiped off the map by the super earthquakes. Michael was just out for a joyride when the people in town went crazy. He barely made it off the streets alive, but the world he knew is now gone.

When massive earthquakes change the shape of the continent, people think it is the worst disaster to hit the world. What they don't know is an evil lies just under the surface of too many people and something has released it. People have turned into crazy murderers overnight, dragging survivors from their homes, hunting them at night. The hunters or Baggers aren't as crazy as they might seem- they are smart. Too smart. No place is safe from them, but the survivors need some place to live. Clementine, Michael, Mason, and Aries might never have met before the world came crashing to an end, but their new lives will bring them together. The question is, will it be in tragedy or survival?

What seemed like your standard disaster story took a whole new turn. Sure the earthquakes were destructive in a predictable way, but when people became crazed murderers, there was no answer for what happened to them. Sometimes they seemed to come out of the darkness that made them commit unspeakable acts, but others were too far gone to connect with humanity anymore. These monsters weren't "zombies" but instead a scarier type of monster- thinking, breathing, feeling monsters who had one purpose- murder those not like them. Truthfully, this was crazier and scarier than any zombie story you have ever read because these murderers can plan and scheme in order to kill you. Not a world I want to find myself in!


The story was rather violent, but it wasn't overdone. I was confused by the very open plot holes, such as what happened to make people crazy, why this coincided with the earthquakes, and why some people were "immune". There were a lot of questions unanswered that might annoy readers who need a solid plot line to follow, but if your reader just likes an exciting story, this is a good one to pass one. The four separate stories that eventually come together are interesting and a great way to show wide-spread destruction. It can be a little confusing at first when you are trying to figure out which character is which, but eventually you get the hang of it. Pretty good book in my opinion, but I am still left scratching my head over all those unanswered questions!