Sarah Gray

So, this book made me cry, repeatedly, and surprisingly, in a good way. I'd had this book on my to-read pile for a while and I was reluctant to read it because books about dead babies don't exactly make for fun, light reading. Thankfully, this book, while heartbreaking at times, is also filled with hope and gratitude. After learning that one of her twin sons had a fatal condition and would not live long, the author made the decision to donate his remains to medical research and this book tells the tale of how those donations were used and the incredible resulting research. There's a lot of information about how organ donation works, the medical research which can only be done with human tissue donation, and intriguing hope for treatments made possible by donations. And yes, I'm sentimental enough that a story about people helping others and medical research that leads to curing disease brings me tears of joy.… (meer)

This lost a bit of momentum for me in the second half, still, it’s an entertaining, fast-paced read.

With a zombie apocalypse taking their parents, Florence has made it her mission to protect her nine year old sister, Liss. Along the way, Florence has developed rules for survival, all of which she’s passing on to Liss, chief among her rules is avoid interacting with other people, however, that rule is about to be tested big time.

I loved the relationship between the sisters, it draws you into the story immediately, you see how much they care about each other so it’s easy as the reader to become invested in them, too.

I liked Kean well enough (though it surprised me that his behavior at the mall didn’t leave Florence angry and require an apology, it just seemed a bit out of character for her to end up cool with it, laughing even), but the more standout supporting characters for me were Trouble and Henry. I liked the fairly unique complication each brought to the plot, with Trouble not speaking english, and Henry in a wheelchair, they added some interesting challenges to the standard survival tale.

The first half of this book I probably would have given five stars, it’s more simplistic, the basics of finding food, shelter, and other supplies, not knowing if you can trust other people you cross paths with, that’s the kind of survival story I most enjoy, sort of reality based I guess where you can envision yourself in the characters’ shoes. I don’t want to spoil anything by saying where these characters end up, just that along the way circumstances change, and for me, it kind of felt like the shift from the more basic survival stories of the first season of Lost or the first couple of seasons of The Walking Dead compared to the later years when they turned into something somewhat more convoluted that I just don’t find quite as engaging.

That said, it’s not like the book went super far off the rails, it’s still interesting, I wasn’t tempted to quit reading at any point, it’s just a personal preference thing where the simpler story of the first half connected with me more, the character decisions and the action just felt more organic.

Lastly, I just want to note that there’s a fun choose your own adventure style bonus chapter at the end of the book where the reader as Florence, must make the right decisions in order to reach her sister at their father’s house.… (meer)