Ashes - Book Review

Title ~ Ashes
Series ~ Ashes Trilogy #1
Author ~ Ilsa J. Bick
Release Date ~ September 6, 2011
Age Group ~ Young Adult
Publisher ~ Egmont USA
Source ~ NetGalley

GOODREADS SUMMARY

It could happen tomorrow...

A cataclysmic event. An army of "The Changed."
Can one teen really survive on her own?

An electromagnetic pulse sweeps through the sky, destroying every electronic device and killing billions. For those spared, it's a question of who can be trusted and who is no longer human...

Desperate to find out what happened and to avoid the Changed, Alex meets up with Tom---a young army veteran---and Ellie, a young girl whose grandfather was killed by the electromagnetic pulse.

This improvised family will have to use every ounce of courage they have just to survive.

REVIEW

Ashes tells the terrifying story of Alex, a teen girl with an incurable brain tumor. She gives up on her treatments, and goes on a camping survival trip. While camping, she meets up with a grandpa and his eight-year-old granddaughter, Ellie. Suddenly, a crazy electrical pulse shock zapping thing happens and the world has changed.

After the pulse, many people are dead, others survive with a change (Alex gains a super sense of smell), and others become flesh-eating zombies. The really scary thing about the zombies, is that they are able to learn and change their behaviors. I really like this about the zombies because they are dynamic.

Alex and Ellie hook up with Tom, who has his own psychological wounds to deal with. I grew attached to this trio and I liked the way they played off of each other. Alex is resilient, Ellie can be moody but it makes sense given her age, and Tom holds the group together.

Then, a spoilery thing happens at the end of one chapter and it felt like I was reading an entirely different book in the next chapter. Huh? Some characters are gone, others are still around, there is a cult introduced, and I was pretty confused. Maybe this whole shift will be explained in a future book in the series, maybe not. I really did love the first half of the book.  The second half, not so much.

Ashes is very graphic and violent. If you like your flesh-eating zombies with lots of blood and gore, then you will love Ashes. The way Ilsa J. Bick writes these scenes made them gruesome, but in a way that I wasn’t scared off from continuing to read.

RATING

3 So-So

COVER COMMENTS

Terrifying comes to life on this cover. PERFECT!