Amanda HickieBesprekingen

The epidemic seemed to come out of nowhere, but Hannah knows that it does not take long for something like this to spread. And she is determined to do everything she can to protect her family from contracting the highly communicable and deadly illness. But staying alive in the face of disaster is not easy. And it can be further complicated when one cannot leave the house or be sure who to trust. And with symptoms taking up to two days to show themselves, Hannah also cannot be sure that she or any of her family have managed to avoid exposure. But where there is a will to survive, there's always a way. Right?

If you've ever played the online game "Pandemic," you know how this story starts. A disease starts in one small corner of the world, but with world travel being such a thing it quickly finds its way to other cities, other countries, and other continents. Before long, places start closing themselves off to outsiders, not wanting to let anyone in who could have been exposed. This also closes people in, though, and makes the struggle for resources almost as important as the quest to stay disease free. And thus is the world in which Hannah finds herself. It's an interesting read that made me think how I might react myself in such a situation. It's not something we ever expect to happen, but the reality is that it could probably happen just as quickly as it is described here. And would we be prepared?

[This review is based on an advance reader copy provided by the publisher.]

The world is facing an epidemic that is killing thousands of people, and Hannah has decided to prepare her family for the worst by stocking her pantry with food to keep them alive for weeks and by scouring the internet for information several times a day. Her family thinks she's nuts, but when the epidemic keeps coming closer and closer to her home, they end up being thankful for her supposed paranoia. Hannah is not a very likeable person, but it is easy to see why she is torn between keeping her family safe and also helping other people, which she does very begrudgingly. Although there is not a lot of drama in this story, I nevertheless thought it was interesting.½

I just completed Before This Is Over by Amanda Hickie an advanced copy sent to me by Net Galley. First and foremost this is a well written book. About a family that is caught in an epidemic and the population is dying all around them. The book is about what a mother would do to save her family at any cost. The book was suspenseful and I read it in a couple of days. I did fell however that it was drawn out a little too long and things could have moved a little faster. Again I liked the book. I would read other works by this author since it was wrote so well Thanks Net Galley for the read.

Action! Thrills! Suspense!

Yeah, none of that here.
The Waltons neighbors have a bad cold. That was what this book was like. Boring and quite pointless.
Sorry, I just didn't like this book at all.
The only reason I gave it two stars instead of one is because Hickie can write. She just needed to add some more.....anything.

This is a hard one to review. The scale on this book for interest would down, up, down, up, and down.
As in it started slow, then it was good, then it was slow, then it was good, then slow, then it ends.

I mean, yes, it would be hard to write a book about a family stranded in a house for however long this family was stranded. I think there were times when the author was able to accomplish that task and made it interesting. Then there were numerous times when that did not happen. Actually, there were more times when it didn't happen than there were when it did happen. I guess the only thing that really kept me reading was to find out whether or not this family made it and what happened to the world.

That leads me to the ending. The ending. The thing that I spent several hours reading and waiting to get to. It was delivered in about two pages, maybe three. It was like the author was on a deadline, out of time and just threw something in there. Let's just say I was disappointed. While I think I am being very generous with my three stars, I appreciate the time and effort authors put into a book. I just wish that I hadn't put any time into it.

Thanks to Little, Brown and Co. for approving my request and to Net Galley for providing me with a free e-galley in exchange for an honest review.

Amanda Hickie's second novel, An Ordinary Epidemic, is brilliantly sustained 'Chamber writing'. In the sense that Chamber music is written for a small group of musicians, this book draws us deeply in to a small cast of characters over a relatively short period of time and allows us inside the main character, warts, doubts, ordinariness, selfishness, selflessness and all.

It is a thoughtful and insightful look in to an ordinary person, and her family, facing what is to us so far, luckily, an extra-ordinary situation. An outbreak of an new unknown virus comes to Australia, to Sydney and specifically south of the Harbour Bridge. Areas are locked down in quarantine, people hide in their houses, water and power are lost and return, and the threat of danger and death hovers and grows. How Hannah and her family cope with the various stages of the tragedy, with each other and their neighbours, and the outside world is fascinating, ordinary, compelling and rings true.

In her first novel, AfterZoe (self published and available from bookstores and online via ), Amanda created an 'unreal' world that allowed wide philosophical questions and issues of human nature to be subtly played out. In this new story she creates a world so real it allows the action to go on inside it and focuses our attention on the minutae of 'ordinary' daily life in an extra-ordinary situation, allowing more intimate philosophical questions and a close study of human nature to swirl in the background of this tense, claustrophobic world.

I received this book through GoodReads First Reads.

This book had an interesting back-story, but I don't think the plot was active enough to keep me engaged with the text for long. Most of the characters were pretty passive and the ones who did act didn't really seem to have much of a plan. Even within Winney and Nick's rebel organization, they seem to work off of a vague principle and don't actively do much. Also, I think it would have been more interesting if Nick's past were elaborated on more thoroughly; there were vague references to it, but not enough to explain the actual set up of the afterlife. At certain points within the novel, I felt that the timeline got confusing between flashback from life and the present in the afterlife. The mythological references to Lethe water and Ambrosia were really cool though and I liked the overall idea of a different version of the afterlife. The idea was good, but there just wasn't enough plot-development or conclusion to really keep me interested.

This is a great read, thought-provoking and out of left-field, and also familiar and conversational. I was drawn in to the worlds that the author has created, and I enjoyed being part of the day to day life, and the afterlife, of Zoe and the other characters. The book is available on-line and there are some hard copies available too. Kept me thinking right to the end, and beyond...

The cover for this book is very off-putting. If I was simply going through a list of books, I wouldn't give a second glance to it. The plot is intriguing, and I feel a better suited cover image would help in showcasing that. Overall, the story is engaging, though it's not my normal type of read. There were times where I felt it droned on, but I kept with it. A touch of editing and polishing, and I would happily give this story another star or two.

**I was gifted this book for free in exchange for an honest review. My thanks to the author and/or publisher.