Ashes

“It was that stages-of-anger thing. I was shocked and then I got pissed and then I fought like hell…and then I went numb. They called it acceptance, but it wasn’t. It’s what happens when you have only two choices: live with the monster, or kill yourself.”

3 STARS

WHY DID YOU HAVE TO GO AND DO THIS TO ME ILSA, WHY? I have never read a zombie book before. Not one. The thought of it kinda grosses me out, and when I start thinking about it too hard I start thinking I'm a zombie, or that I have the virus inside of me, and it just generally makes me want to vomit. But I loved White Space by this author. Her writing is fantastic, her characters gripping, and all fully developed and she just had such a fantastic world I knew I would like all of her work. And I did. Until I didn't. This book, like some others I've recently read, was essentially two books in one, and one was absolutely fantastic and mindblowing, and the other was crap, literal horse shit right there on the page. I couldn't believe it was the same author; I was literally gaping after the switch happened. The beginning of this book was fascinating. Our main character Alex, is a total badass, but she's dying of a brain tumor and living on borrowed time and just in general bad emotional shape. But she has a mission. Her parents, who died in an accident some years ago, used to always take her to the mountains during the summer. And now she's come to the same place to spread their ashes and be at peace with life before she dies. Amazing, right? Right. Anyway, Alex is up on the mountain when a huge EMP blast hits the world. Now, we've all heard of them, we all know what they do, but this is somehow more advanced (I'm still a little fuzzy about it, though) and killed pretty much all healthy adults, leaving kids under 20 and seniors over 60-65. Only these children are not children anymore, but zombified creatures who will eat your brains and smile about it. And it was fantastic. Until it wasn't. This beginning was about survival and the bond between Alex and Ellie, the 8 year old stowaway she's got along for the ride, and later comes an ex soldier with all his own baggage, and all of them are great together and I was totally happy with them staying like that and being a happy little family, but apparently Bick had other plans. Because one of them gets shot and then the worst book I've ever read happens. Seriously, they are two books I'm not even gonna lie at this point because the beginning was a complete and total five stars and the end was maybe .5 or 1 if I'm being generous. Anyway, Alex finds herself in a religious cult essentially and she has to stay there because she's one of the few kids who weren't turned into zombies, a Spared. And she seems to forget Ellie and Tom and everyone and everything we did in the first half of the book. Seriously it's like she's got amnesia or Bick just forgot about everything else, which I don't think she did. But... The ending saved it for me. The final twist at the end redeemed this book for me and I will be getting the second installment. The twist was unexpected, dark, and perfectly suited for the story. I don't know what the hell happened in the latter half of this book, but that last scene saved it for reasons that will be obvious when you read it. Bick's writing is always wonderful, and most of her characters in this book are fully developed and interesting, and I always love the atmosphere that Bick creates. Not sure what happened in her brain for a while there, but it definitely came back around. 3.5 stars overall. Share your thoughts!