4 out of 5, pretty darn fantastic!
Key Aspects…
- flesh eating teenagers
- survival skills
- romance
- killer twists
- kick arse characters
Ashes is a dystopian set in America focusing on Alex a 17 year old orphan girl with a brain tumour. Having been in touch with the author for several months a few years back I have some insight into the ideas behind this novel series and can vouch for the knowledge that Isla has put into her story. The scene is set in the mountains as Alex decides to hike with her parents ashes to scatter them with slight undertones of potential suicide. Alex seems to have given up hope of her cancer ever going away as the chemotherapy has not worked – she has lost the will to fight, especially with the medications not helping.
As she is hiking (which makes this novel so realistic – Alex has grown up with survival knowledge engrained into her from a small child) an EMP is set off changing the world forever. Young adults’ brains are altered to give them a craving for human flesh. As the world develops in this new dangerous environment, Bick makes sure to explain and identify how this is realistic – Alex is extremely likely to survive this world. I have found this differs greatly from many dystopias (many of them falling into the YA category) through it’s writing and ideas of how this will affect the world and people in it.
The novels are easy to read, developing more character perspectives as the novels go on but allow the reader to bond with these characters and understand them. The following books are SHADOWS and MONSTERS.
The link to buy the first book is here: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Ashes-The-First-Book-Trilogy/dp/0857382624
Do you know of any other good dystopias? I’m always on the look out for more novels to read and review!
S. M. MITCHELL 