Tag: Book Review

“The Girl Who Owned a City” Review: Brilliant Survival Details, Troubling Politics

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Verdict: Worth reading, especially for anyone who loved it as a kid, but read it as something to argue with. Its practical survival details are some of the best in children’s fiction. Its message about ownership and leadership is one the book endorses far more uncritically than most readers will.

The setup

O.T. Nelson’s 1975 novel, his only published book, imagines a plague that kills everyone over the age of twelve. Ten-year-old Lisa and her younger brother Todd are left to survive in suburban Chicago, where gangs of older kids quickly start raiding homes for food. Lisa organizes the children on her street, and eventually leads them into a high school she renames the City of Glenbard, which she fortifies and runs.

What it gets right

Many readers remember this book for decades because of its practical details, and so do we. Lisa thinks like a real survivor: she checks stores for medicine, not just snacks; she figures out where farm supplies would be stored and goes to get them; she teaches herself to drive; she organizes the kids into work crews; she thinks about defending a building before anyone attacks it. For a child reading it, the message that you can figure things out and take care of yourself is thrilling, and the book’s step-by-step problem-solving still holds up.

Where it gets uncomfortable

Nelson was a committed free-market libertarian, and the novel is openly a vehicle for those ideas. Lisa does not just lead Glenbard; she owns it, because she thought of it first, and the book treats that claim as obviously correct. When other children push back and ask why it is her city rather than theirs, the story mostly frames their objections as confusion that Lisa patiently corrects. The rival gang leader, Logan, conquers the city but can’t run it, because the children won’t work for him, and the book presents this as proof that Lisa’s way is right. It is a fascinating argument, but it is an argument, and the book never lets anyone make a strong case against her.

Lisa is also implausibly prescient. She anticipates nearly every problem before it happens, while most of the other children exist to need her guidance, which makes the story feel more like a thought experiment than a novel at times.

Who should read it

Survival fiction fans who want a quick, unusual read; adults revisiting a childhood favorite; and teachers or parents looking for a book that will start a real discussion about leadership, property and fairness. Pair it with Lord of the Flies for a very different answer to the same question: what happens when children run the world?

Did you read this one as a kid? Tell us in the comments whether Lisa was your hero, and whether she still is.

“The Four Horsemen” Series Review: Laura Thalassa’s Apocalypse Is a Romance First

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Verdict: If you want a romance with an apocalypse in it, this series delivers, and it gets better as it goes. If you want apocalyptic fiction with a romance in it, look elsewhere. And know going in that every book is built on a captor-and-captive relationship, which will be a dealbreaker for some readers.

The setup

Laura Thalassa’s four-book series imagines the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse arriving on Earth to end humanity, one at a time, each in a different part of the world. Each book pairs one horseman with a human woman:

  • Pestilence: Sara Burn shoots the plague-bringing horseman off his steed, only to learn he can’t be killed. He takes her prisoner instead.
  • War: When Jerusalem falls, Miriam Elmahdy is spared by War himself, who claims her as his wife and takes her into his camp.
  • Famine: Ana and the cruelest of the horsemen are drawn to each other despite everything he does.
  • Death: Death kills an entire town at once and finds a single woman left standing: Lazarus Gaumond, who cannot be killed.

What works

The premise is bold, and Thalassa commits to it. The horsemen are genuinely frightening, and the destruction they cause is not softened. Each book is a road trip across a dying region, and the real question underneath every romance is a good one: is humanity worth saving? The books answer it differently each time, which gives the series more weight than its covers suggest. The four horsemen each feel distinct, and Death ties the series together by finally explaining why the horsemen came and what it would take to stop them.

What doesn’t

The apocalypse is mostly backdrop. If you come here for the mechanics of survival, how people find food and shelter and hold communities together as the world ends, you will find very little. The story stays tightly focused on two people.

The bigger issue is the core dynamic. In each book, the woman is held by a supernatural being who has destroyed everything she knows, and the romance grows out of that captivity. The series is aware of this and works hard to give its heroines agency and moral force, often making them the reason the horsemen change. Some readers will find that convincing. Others won’t get past the premise, and that is a fair reaction.

The books are also explicit. That is a feature for the target audience, but it is worth knowing before you hand one to a teenager who liked the cover.

Who should read it

Adult fantasy romance readers who like enemies-to-lovers stories and darker themes will likely devour all four. Readers looking for survival fiction, or who dislike captive romance, should skip it.

Have you read the series? Tell us in the comments which horseman’s book you think is strongest.

“The Hunger Games” Review: Still the Best Survival Novel Disguised as a YA Hit

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Verdict: Read it, or reread it. The Hunger Games is a better survival novel than most books shelved as survival fiction, and its critique of spectacle has only gotten sharper with age. The love triangle is the weakest thing in it.

The setup

Suzanne Collins’ 2008 novel is set in Panem, a nation built on the ruins of North America, where a wealthy Capitol rules twelve impoverished districts. As punishment for a past rebellion, each district must send two children every year to the Hunger Games, a televised fight to the death. When her younger sister’s name is drawn in District 12, sixteen-year-old Katniss Everdeen volunteers to take her place.

What it gets right: survival as competence

What sets this book apart for us is that Katniss survives because she has real skills, and Collins takes them seriously. Before the Games, Katniss is already feeding her family by hunting illegally with a bow, gathering wild plants and trading in the black market. In the arena, the things that keep her alive are mostly unglamorous: finding water before dehydration sets in, knowing which plants are edible and which kill, treating burns and infections, sleeping where she can’t be easily reached, and keeping track of her own exhaustion. Water is a genuine crisis in the first days of her Games, which is more realistic than nearly any survival thriller manages.

The book is also honest about what scarcity does to people. District 12’s hunger is not set dressing. It shapes every relationship Katniss has, and it explains why she is so pragmatic and so slow to trust.

What it gets right: the audience

The Games are not just a punishment; they are entertainment, and Katniss quickly learns that surviving them means performing for the cameras. Sponsors send gifts to tributes they like, so likability becomes a survival skill. That part of the book reads even more pointedly now, in an age of reality television and social media, than it did on release.

Where it falls short

The romance between Katniss and Peeta is deliberately ambiguous, since she is partly playing to the cameras, and that is clever. The love triangle with Gale back home, though, feels obligatory, and later books lean on it more than the story deserves. The worldbuilding outside the arena is also thin; we learn little about how Panem actually works beyond District 12 and the Capitol.

Who should read it

Anyone interested in survival fiction, including adults who skipped it because of the YA label. The violence is real but not gratuitous, and the book is short enough to read in a weekend.

Have you read it recently? Tell us in the comments whether it holds up for you, and whether you think the sequels earn their ending.

“The Maze Runner” Review: A Great Hook That Keeps Its Secrets Too Long

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Verdict: Worth reading for the premise and the pace, especially for younger teens. Adult readers will likely find the characters thin and the mystery frustrating, since the book withholds information mostly because the plot needs it to.

The setup

James Dashner’s 2009 novel opens with a boy waking up in a rising elevator with no memory except his first name, Thomas. He arrives in the Glade, a walled clearing populated entirely by teenage boys who have arrived the same way, one per month, for two years. Every morning the stone walls open onto a vast maze that rearranges itself at night, when monstrous creatures called Grievers hunt anyone caught inside. The Gladers have spent two years mapping it, looking for a way out.

What works

The premise is excellent, and the first act is genuinely gripping. The Glade itself is the most interesting part of the book for a site like ours: the boys have built a functioning little society, with farming, livestock, cooking, construction, medical care, strict rules and a council that enforces them. Watching how they divide labor, punish rule-breakers and keep order without adults is the best survival material in the novel, and we wished the book spent more time on it.

The pacing is relentless. Short chapters end on cliffhangers, which makes it a fast read and a good pick for reluctant readers.

What doesn’t

The mystery runs on characters refusing to explain things to Thomas for no good reason. The Gladers know a great deal about how their world works, but they keep telling him he’ll learn later, and the only real reason is that the book wants to save its answers. That gets frustrating fast.

Most of the characters are also defined by one trait. Minho is tough, Newt is steady, Chuck is sweet, Gally is hostile. Teresa, the only girl to arrive, is given very little to do in this first book. And the invented Glader slang, meant to make the society feel lived-in, often reads as a way to avoid swearing.

Finally, the ending explains part of the mystery and then opens a much bigger one. It is a setup for the sequels, not a resolution, so be prepared to keep reading if you want answers.

Who should read it

Readers around 12 to 15 will likely love it. Older readers who enjoy a strong premise and don’t mind thin characters will have a good time. If you want a deep post-apocalyptic world, start with something else.

Did the Glade’s society convince you? Tell us in the comments how long you think it would have held together without the Maze.

Review: After the Ending by Lindsey Fairleigh and Lindsey Pogue

Posted on by anninyn

After the Ending by Lindsey Fairleigh and Lindsey Pogue is the first in The Ending Series. A post-apocalyptic book focusing on two women.

The Virus spread. Billions died. The Ending began. We may have survived the apocalypse, but the Virus changed us.

When people started getting sick, “they” thought it was just the flu. My roommate, my boyfriend, my family…they’re all gone now. I got sick too. I should have died with them, but I didn’t. I thought witnessing the human population almost disappear off the face of the earth was the craziest thing I’d ever experience. I was wrong. My name is Dani, I’m twenty-six-years-old, and I survived The Ending.

The Virus changed everything. The world I knew is gone, and life is backwards. We’ve all had to start over. I’m someone else now—broken and changed. Other survivors’ memories and emotions haunt me.

They invade my mind until I can no longer separate them from my own. I won’t let them consume me. I can’t. My name is Zoe, I’m twenty-six-years-old, and I survived The Ending.

We’ve been inseparable for most of our lives, and now our friendship is all we have left. The aftermath of the Virus has stranded us on opposite sides of the United States. Trusting strangers, making sacrifices, killing—we’ll do anything to reach one another.

This was, sadly, a bit of a disappointment.

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REVIEW: Wool by Hugh Howey

Posted on by anninyn

Wool by Hugh Howey is set in a post-apocalyptic world where people live in vast, underground silos.

In a ruined and hostile landscape, in a future few have been unlucky enough to survive, a community exists in a giant underground silo.

 Inside, men and women live an enclosed life full of rules and regulations, of secrets and lies.

 To live, you must follow the rules. But some don’t. These are the dangerous ones; these are the people who dare to hope and dream, and who infect others with their optimism.

 Their punishment is simple and deadly. They are allowed outside.

 Jules is one of these people. She may well be the last.

Review copy provided by Random House through NetGalley

A note: This is actually the Wool omnibus, collecting  Novellas 1-5 of the series originally self-published by Howey. I’m new to the wonderful world of Wool, which is shocking considering my status as one of the main reviewers at In Case of Survival. However, it has a lot of what I like in a series – a female protagonist, a post-apocalyptic world, an assault against oppressive regimes.

These things are my catnip. So, how does it pan out for me?

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Osiris by E. J. Swift

Posted on by anninyn

“Nobody leaves Osiris. Osiris is a lost city. She has lost the world and world has lost her . . .”

Rising high above the frigid waters, the ocean city of Osiris has been cut off from the land since the Great Storm 50 years ago. Most believe that Osiris is the last city on Earth. Adelaide is the black-sheep granddaughter of the city’s Architect. A jaded socialite, she wants little to do with her powerful relatives — until her troubled twin brother disappears mysteriously. Vikram, a third-generation storm refugee, sees his own people dying of cold and starvation. He hopes to use Adelaide to bring about much-needed reforms — but who is using whom? As another brutal winter brings Osiris closer to riot and revolution, two very different people attempt to bridge the gap dividing the city, only to find a future far more complicated than either of them ever imagined.

Osiris [1. provided free by Night Shade Books] is a difficult book. It’s beautifully written, intricately plotted and has a well-imagined setting, but even with all those things, I’m not entirely sure that I enjoyed it.

Osiris is another slow starter, which I’m not opposed to in fantasy books, but it’s almost too slow. I kept finding myself excuses not to read it – not because it was bad, but because amidst the glorious prose and careful plotting, I felt a core of coldness, or lack. An emptyness. I just didn’t care. I didn’t care about Adelaide, I didn’t care about her brother, Axel, I didn’t care about Vikram or the uprising. I just didn’t care.

Which is not to say Osiris is a bad book. I cannot be more clear on this – it is, in fact, a very good book. There are a lot of things that I should have loved about it – decently written female MC! Prose that rises above the merely competent! Interesting and unique setting! Uprising and rebellions! I should have loved it. I should have been using this space to rave about it, to tell you to go spend your hard earned money on Osiris, I should have wanted a physical copy so I could read and re-read until the spine creased and the pages fell out. But I just didn’t.

I did manage to finish it, but it was because I requested the eARC myself and didn’t feel I could just stop. The ending is sufficiently satisfying and powerful – or it would be if I’d had a strong enough emotional connection to the book. It sets up nicely for future books in the series, as well, if that’s something that appeals to you.

This isn’t a great review – all I can do with a review is put across my own personal opinion, and in this case it’s quite simple. Osiris is a good book, but it left me cold.  I don’t think it’s the fault of the writer. It’s not you, E. J. Swift, it’s me.

[Rating:2.75/5]

Book Review: Apocalyse How by Rob Kutner

Posted on by anninyn

[1. provided for review by Running Press]

Let’s face it: Our world’s gotta go sometime.

Whether it’s due to mushroom clouds, asteroids, a mad supergenius, Jesus, newly sentient iPods, or Pod People, everything about life on Earth is going to change.

And you should be psyched.

APOCALYPSE HOW is a comprehensive cataclysmic guide that walks you through the Nine Most Likely World-Ending Scenarios, and provides useful and inspiring advice on every aspect of surviving (and thriving!) in the new world to come. Covering everything from food, shelter, and relocation to social life, dating, recreation and career, APOCALYPSE HOW is the only book you’ll need – and just might be the last one left at all.

 

OK, this is going to be a short review. Why? Because if you like this website, you will LOVE this book.

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Book Review: Robopocalypse by Daniel H. Wilson

Posted on by anninyn

[1. Robopocalypse was provided for review by Simon & Schuster]

Twenty years from now, a high-level artificial intelligence known as Archos comes on-line…and murders its creator.

Humanity has no idea when it starts to silently take over our cars, power grids, aircraft guidance systems and computer networks.

In the early months, sporadic glitches are noticed by a handful of humans, but most of us are unaware of the growing rebellion until it is too late.

At a moment known later in history as Zero Hour, every mechanical device in our world rebels against us, setting off the Robot War that both decimates and – for the first time in history – unites humankind.

Something I’ve had to learn with my increasing review schedule is this: Just because a book is good doesn’t mean I’ll like it, and just because I like a book doesn’t mean it’s good.

I like this book a lot. But, objectively speaking, it’s not that good. It’s action-y brain candy, and there is nothing wrong with that.

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