Then Ellie, a smart mouth eight year old, and her grandfather come upon Alex right when the electromagnet wave hits. She also refuses any more treatments for her brain tumor. We start out with Alex on a mountain waiting to make peace with the death of her parents. Let’s just say this book doesn’t disappoint. I was able to get an ebook galley from Netgalley. If you know by now, Egmont is one of my favorite publishers.

Add a frightening premise in a world that could very well be our own. I knew I had to grab a copy of this book especially when I heard how amazing it was. If you're on Twitter, I'm sure you've read alot about the YA dystopia ASHES. If you love action, guts, being scared, and being surprised, make sure that ASHES is at the top of your To Read list. Happily, Shadows will be released in Fall 2012, so while I have a wait to learn what happens next, I am comforted to know that eventually I will know. Some of the sentences are so simple, yet knocked me out, like, 'That was the last good time.' This sentence pops up only halfway through the book, by the way.ĪSHES ends with one of the best cliffhangers I've ever encountered, and I actually didn't know that it is the first in a trilogy, so I scrambled to the computer to learn more. Bick is insanely talented and able to weave a story that doesn't follow a predictable structure. It kept me up late at night and had me panicking about the fact that I don't know how to start a fire or fight, and that I have two canned items in my cupboard. The three stick together as they try to survive, but my zombie reading experience warned me that nothing was going to work out. While she hikes to scatter her parents' ashes, she manages to escape the worst of the calamity and teams up with a cranky young orphan named Ellie and a cute veteran named Tom. Alex has never been lucky: first her parents died and then she was diagnosed with a brain tumor. I either need to get some survival training or I need to stop reading books about the apocalypse.ĪSHES is an intense and thrilling addition to the genre, detailing what happens after an electromagnetic pulse kills the majority of adults and leaves most teenagers as cannibalistic zombies.

Ashes by ilsa j bick