"After an electromagnetic pulse destroys all electronic devices and billions of folks, the relative few remaining aren't liking their odds. Apart from starvation, natural disasters, and marauding gangs of desperate survivors, there is also the fact that almost all of the young people are now turning into flesh-eating zombies. Bummer. Alex, Tom, and Ellie are three who, at first, escaped all of the possible hazards. Soon, however, Ellie is kidnapped for her bait potentialsince children are rare, she's valuable enough to get her abductors admitted to a safe haven. Tom ends up gravely injured, and Alex herself seems to have a range of options that are all actually worse than her life before the pulse (in which she was dying of a brain tumor, just to give some perspective). Readers seeking levity or happy endings are duly warned that this is a grim world and all of the paths are realistically horrificthere really are no quick saves or easy options after the end of the world as the characters know it. While it might have been more comforting had some survivors been heroes, it is to Bick's credit that she sticks with her premise that epic, utter disaster would yield frightened, selfish, dangerous, and deranged individuals, and these are the folks with whom Alex, stubborn and brilliant and achingly relatable, must contend. The gorgeous (and disturbing cover) is sure to grab attention; an impeccable sci-fi/horror balance, quick pace, and risky storytelling all live up to the jacket's promise." The Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books
Bick delivers an action-packed tale of an apocalypse unfolding, launching a trilogy with flair. While camping in a national park in Michigan, 17-year-old Alex, a girl coping with a brain tumor and the side effects of its treatment, survives a series of electromagnetic pulses that may have taken out the entire world. Miles from nowhere, she hikes with new companions—an obstinate eight-year-old orphan named Ellie and a young soldier named Tom—as they try to make sense of things. Aside from wrecking their equipment, the pulse has killed most adults and morphed young people into psychotic flesh-eating monsters that are soon dubbed the Changed. Alex is different, too (her formerly dead sense of smell is now nearly supernaturally strong), and the companions worry about their own potential to "Change" as they attempt to find other survivors. Bick (Draw the Dark) doesn't shy away from gore—one woman's guts "boiled out in a dusky, desiccated tangle, like limp spaghetti"—but it doesn't derail the story's progress. If readers have any complaint, it will be with the ending, which only sets up the next book. Ages 14–up. (Sept.)
Bick takes the best of post-apocalyptic, zombie fiction, like Cormac McCarthy's The Road (Vintage Books, 2007) and Robert Kirkman's The Walking Dead graphic novel series (Image Comics, 2006-2011), and adds the exact thing that has been sorely lacking from those genres: girl power, and in a heaping dose. Seeking reprieve from a terminal sentence, orphan Alex decides to spend her last days in the wilderness. When she meets a kindly old man and his snotty granddaughter, Ellie, Alex is eager to be alone, but noone is prepared for an electromagnetic pulse that leaves the old man dead and Alex with a recovered sense of smell and the new ability to discern fear. There are also a whole mess of ravenous adolescent cannibals, paranoid adults, and a ticked-off eight-year-old. A child psychiatrist, aspiring surgeon, and former Air Force major, Bick has the background necessary to craft her tale, as her heroine faces situations that make the Hunger Games look like a tea party. Deceptively simple at first, the story is infused with science and real-life elements that lend further credence as the action picks up steam. Bick proves adept at tugging at heartstrings while gearing up for the next dreadful thing waiting around the corner. Oh sure, there are a few love interests in the mix, but do not mistake Alex for the shrinking-violet paranormal wisps or kick-rump world saviors flooding the YA market. She is better: a real girl with brains and heart, just trying to survive in a world that is out to eat her alive. Reviewer: Matthew Weaver
Gr 10 Up—A ragtag group—a teen with an inoperable and terminal brain tumor on a journey to find closure, a young soldier on leave running from personal demons, and an angry little girl whose grandfather has taken her on a backpacking trip after the death of her father—have two important things in common: the electromagnetic pulse that ripped through the sky while they were hiking in the Waucamaw Wilderness didn't kill them, and it did not change them into crazed, flesh-eating zombies. Now they are trying to stay alive and keep as far away from the zombies as possible. However, the greatest threat to their survival may come from other survivors. In the gore, violence, and disturbing societal constructions of this postapocalyptic/zombie thriller, readers will see echoes of Suzanne Collins's "Hunger Games" series (Scholastic), Patrick Ness's "Chaos Walking" series (Candlewick), and James Dashner's "The Maze Runner" series (Delacorte), making this an excellent choice for those searching for more along the same lines. The novel is equal parts horrifying and riveting, and many teens will be compelled to devour it in one sitting. But be forewarned: not a single plot point is wrapped up, so readers who like things neatly solved better wait until the whole trilogy is out.—Heather M. Campbell, formerly at Philip S. Miller Library, Castle Rock, CO
When civilization ends and you're faced with an army of face-eating, nuclear-mutant zombies, having a brain tumor doesn't seem so bad.
Alex, orphaned, 17 and dying, decides she's sick of pointless chemo. She bugs out of school for a backpacking trip in the wilderness, determined to make her own end. Just a few days into her trip something terrible happens: A horrible, screeching pain knocks her senseless, kills an elderly backpacker and sends scores of dead birds falling from the sky. Wild dogs in the area seem to have run mad, and did Alex actually see two teenagerseatingan old woman? Along with two fellow survivors—bratty middle schooler Ellie and Tom, a young soldier on leave—Alex seeks safety. Alex and Tom are both outdoorsy, but for every cache of weapons and MREs they find, another horrible event takes place. Their gun-toting survivalism only keeps them safe for so long in a post-apocalyptic America in which most of the other young people have been Changed to cannibals. The requisite creepy cultist village raises excellent questions of trust and society. Alex can't survive on her Glock alone; she needs supplies, knowledge, allies and affection.
Splendidly paced apocalyptic zombie horror ends with a thrilling, terrifying cliffhanger and a number of unresolved mysteries.(Horror. 12-15)