5/5 Stars 334 pages Published December 24th 2013 by Clean Teen Publishing
Imagine you’re standing in line in the hot sun. Now imagine that, but for a week straight. Not only is the sun hot, but everyone is very stressed out. You’re not waiting for a new phone, or to get into the store to get your groceries. You’re waiting for your spot in an underground vault. A massive bunker. And there’s a plague spreading fast. If you didn’t think it could get any worse than that, you’re dead wrong. There’s no actual guarantee that you’ll get in, and the weather is only going to get more extreme. This, and more, is what fifteen year old Willow is facing with her family.
A very unique take on a classic apocalyptic fiction story, as an insane last resort to contain a virus that’s taking over the world, the world leaders are planning on heating the planet hot enough to wipe it, and anyone who’s infected, out. The rich and most important people are ushered into the vaults, leaving the poor people and the infected people scrambling trying to get in, or face to deathly hot conditions outside.
Now if you know me, you’d know I’m a huge fan of the game series, Fallout, as well as almost any book featuring the apocalypse. So of course this was right up my alley. I loved the story, the characters, and the setting. I think it’s perfect for all ages to read, and I can’t wait to read more. Kind of an X-Men meets Fallout 3, but not the entire game. Just the beginning where you’re growing up in the vault. Definitely check it out if you get the chance.
If you’d like to grab a copy for yourself, you can here!
And you can follow the authors, Rebecca and Courtney, on Twitter!
Thanks for reading, hope you have a great day! Did you play the fallout games? I could talk about them all day.
5/5 Stars 416 pages Published April 27th 2021 by Doubleday Canada
A book about a very unique end of the world as we know it kind of situation, we get to see everything happening through a multitude of different women. From reporters and doctors to stay at home mothers, and everything in between, all of it just really works well together. When a modern day plague takes out most of the world’s population of men, women are forced to stand up tall and take the world’s problems into their own hands, or face something worse, complete extinction.
After the first cases are discovered by her in her own workplace, Amanda is cast aside as an unhinged woman, ignored by her peers and bosses and health care professionals. This causes the virus to spiral out of control. But by the time that everyone else realizes that she was right, it’s much too late. We basically get to watch the world fall apart from Europe and eventually everywhere else in the world, in first person, as they struggle to put everything back together and right the world again, while also struggling through the loss of all the men and boys in their lives.
I think that this was a very well put together and interesting book with lifelike characters, the makings for a really great book. Everyone’s just trying to survive this huge loss and put the world back together, and I couldn’t put it down. I couldn’t wait to see what was going to happen next. Of course I would love a new take on an apocalypse book, though. So if you’re a mature reader and think that you would love this, check it out! Who knows? You might love it just as much as I did.
And if you’d like to keep up with the author, you can here on Twitter!
Thanks for reading! I hope you have a great day.
Disclaimer: Some of the links in this post are affiliate links. We are a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, a means for us to earn fees by linking to Amazon.ca and affiliated sites.
Looking for an insane story of the apocalypse due to a virus? Do you want to see kids really have to take things into their own hands in that kind of world? If so, this might be something you want to look into the next time you’re looking for a graphic novel to read. It really shows the gritty parts of a terrifying future fantasy, and that’s just what I love about reading comics. And who knows? You might too.
5/5 Stars 152 pages Published March 23rd 2021 by Image Comics
This book follows a family, a single dad and his two kids. After losing their mother to a virus that sweeps the world and creates a kind of chaos that destroys society as we know it, they’re forced to leave their home, sacrifice their pet, and really fend for themselves not only out in the wilderness, but in a chaotic village full of nasty people. Willing to do what they need to survive, they also end up picking up a baby along the way, and then eventually more people. It really shows the hard parts of life, like trying to live again after losing someone that means so much to you.
I loved this story from the moment I picked it up, and honestly, I knew that I would. I’m just addicted to these kinds of post apocalyptic stories, they’re so interesting and exciting to me. Yes, some parts were hard to read and hurt my heart, but I pushed through and came out clean on the other side. The art work was also a very nice addition, and really matched the story, in my opinion. I couldn’t ask for anything more from it, and I can’t wait to see what happens after this book. It really captured everything perfectly.
And if you’d like to keep up with the creator, you can here on Twitter!
Thanks for reading! Hope you’re doing well, and reading awesome books like this one.
Disclaimer: Some of the links in this post are affiliate links. We are a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, a means for us to earn fees by linking to Amazon.ca and affiliated sites.
4/5 Stars 700 pages Published November 17th 2020 by Luminary Media
Not usually into books of this length, Complex really blew me away because it was able to completely hold my attention for it’s entirety of 700 pages. Five separate books in one, though not described as that, this was a rollercoaster from start to finish of an epic tale in which a dystopia was ruled by businesses. Which, if you ask me, is actually a very real option for the future, especially in places where they have more power than they should. I don’t know why this hasn’t been written about more often, because I really just find it fascinating, and I can’t get enough. But you know me, I’m obsessed with all things tech, scifi, and dystopia. What more could I ask for? This book is perfect for me.
Described as a story of two sisters Val and Kat, who are left alone after the death of their father in their dystopian world of Legacy, the area just outside of the Arc, a dystopia run by businesses. Though it seems like everything is better and safer, there are just different kinds of threats hiding behind the green grass and order. But this story is so much more than just that. The characters range from very poor, to very wealthy, all having completely different personalities and lives. And each person has their own piece to bring to the perfectly put together puzzle. After Kat is kidnapped in the middle of the night, Val blames herself for not being able to fight off the offenders, but can’t sit around feeling sorry for herself forever. She does what she has to do to get information about her missing sister, including selling her body online for a scummy man who claims he has what she needs. But what she digs herself into is far beyond anyone could have ever guessed would happen.
There’s Trevor, a romantic interest for Val and a very helpful character in the story with his hacking skills and clever way of thinking, Riku, a high up man in the military who just wants to right the wrongs in the world, and hopefully save his friend and her child. There’s Ian, an insanely smart hacker who we don’t get to know very thoroughly but he really ends up helping out in the end, Ray, an assassin with a drug addiction who doesn’t really care about anyone other than the people he’s working for, and Manalo, a sweet old grandfather who just wants to have a purpose for his life again, after the loss of his wife. And there’s a few other characters we get to see the world through, but really all of these characters breath life into this epic and long winded novel. Without their lifelike personalities, I would have lost interest a long time ago, because even though I’m extremely interested in the world that they live in, you need good characters to keep everything moving along at a steady pace. And boy, did it.
I think this book is an amazing mix of dystopian scifi, futuristic tech with the computers inside every single person, and a very intriguing story of what could go wrong when businesses end up taking over for the government. When emergencies happen, like a virus that spreads too quickly and mutates too fast to keep up with, and especially when the computers get too strong for us to handle. When they realize that they want more than just to help, that they want to do. And I loved every moment of it. The end of the book also hints to a series, which I’m very excited to deep dive into once it’s released. With that ending, who wouldn’t be? I’m very glad I got a chance to check it out, and I think that the beautiful cover it has would be welcomed into anyone’s intensive book collection. Honestly, I’d even like a poster of it if that was a thing. It’s just so aesthetically pleasing, and says so much about the book without having to actually say anything. Overall, if you’re a fan of tech, scifi, dystopia’s, and stories of survival no matter what, than I definitely recommend checking this book out.
And if you’d like to keep up with the author on Twitter, you can here!
Thanks for reading! Hope you’re doing well and staying warm. And reading long amazing books.
Disclaimer: Some of the links in this post are affiliate links. We are a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, a means for us to earn fees by linking to Amazon.ca and affiliated sites.
4/5 Stars 165 pages Published January 6th 2011 by Harben Publishing
A classic zombie apocalypse situation, mixed with high school aged characters, filled with action, military, and deception. What more could you ask for? The twist here is, is that it’s set in Australia, and the zombie outbreak is trying to be kept hidden by the government, the military, and everyone else in charge of it. Created by scientists, this deadly virus will tear apart the world person by person if it gets the chance to get out. But will it? You’ll have to read to find out.
It starts out like any other teen novel with Rebecca, our main character, going to school and hanging out with her friends after moving to Australia. Her mom is absent most of the time, busy with work, but one day before she can return the world she knows starts to crumble before her eyes. What is there to do? Grab your friends, grab some supplies, and maybe your military ex boyfriend, and go on the run of course. But the horror they’re going to experience is so unexpected and brutal that I don’t think they’ll ever recover.
The story itself was just different enough from the other zombie apocalypse novels I’ve read, that it was actually really interesting to read and learn about. I liked the little part at the beginning where it showed what the end of the book would be like, I thought that was really insightful and different. So I knew where it was all going to end up, but I got to see really how it ended up that way. I couldn’t even imagine a situation like the one that the characters have to go through in this book, how traumatizing that must be. I do know that this is just the first book in a series however, so I’m interested to see what happens in the next one.
If you’d like to grab a copy, you can do so here, through my Amazon Associates link.
And if you’d like to keep up with the author, you can here on Twitter!
Thanks for reading! Hope you have a great day and are doing well.
4/5 Stars 160 pages Published November 24th 2020 by Image Comics
You know how I feel about books about people with powers, and if you don’t here’s a reminder. I love them most of the time! Especially when there’s something relatable to our own world it. And that’s why I loved this book. Super relatable even now in the midst of a lockdown, the future world that Mer lives in is not only filled with some really interesting tech, but one with a virus that kills most of the people that catch it. If you can live through it, however, you’re really a changed person, quite literally. You have powers, but you’re also completely segregated from the people without. But you’re immune from catching it again.
We see some familiar things, gang violence, daily mask wearing, a girl who just lives with her cat, and it changes to something crazy and really interesting. After learning she has the virus, to almost dying in the hospital, Mer has some big changes coming to her life, and that’s not just losing her job due to her sudden illness. She’s now faced with a choice to join a gang, or just be completely isolated from everyone else. She just wants advice from her cousin, but even that’s not so simple.
This was a really good book, and I can’t wait to see what happens next. It has some action in it, including a lot of really detailed blood and gore at times, but entwined into that is a story of a woman just wanting to fit in and really find herself again. I didn’t want to put it down once I started it. I think that this was a really nice break from the novels I’ve been reading lately, or more like haven’t been reading. It was a breath of fresh air, and it gives me new motivation. If you think you’d be into something like that, I definitely recommend checking it out.
If you’d like to grab a copy, you can here through my Amazon Associates link!
And if you’d like to keep up with one of the creators you can here on Twitter!
Thanks for reading! Hope you’re doing well and staying safe.
4/5 Stars 144 pages Published November 11th 2020 by Ahoy Comics
I’m going to be honest, I haven’t read as many comics and graphic novels this year as I have in other years. No particular reason, just not as many have caught my eye lately. This one however, is very different than the usual ones I would pick up, horror or supernatural or superhuman comics. Billionaire Island is a story about what would happen if a massive corporation wanted to control the world’s population by not only creating a deadly sterilization virus, but also if they took the world’s richest people and stuck them all on a floating man made island away from the chaos. But as they’re going to find out, they can’t run and hide forever.
I really enjoyed the topic of this comic because I love apocalyptic fiction, and I love violent scenes in comics. The story was amazing and I really didn’t want to put it down once I finally got around to reading it. The characters ranged from kind of strange, chaotically neutral, and then just the diabolical richest of the rich. Sometimes I think that rich people really think like this, just without a care for anyone else in the world, and this book really takes it to the absolute extreme. Locking people up at their work station so that they don’t kill themselves, putting people that they don’t want around in a human sized hamster cage to live out the rest of their lives, and even letting a literal dog run their world. Who knew all of these things could go together so well?
And at the midst of the story, a man who’s lost everything he cares about in life, just trying to expose the billionaires for what they really are. And taking down anyone he has to in the process. He’s bad ass, and he’s ready to get his revenge. I really liked reading this story, and there isn’t really anything bad to say about it, at least in my opinion. I would say if you think you’d be into something like this, definitely grab a copy and check it out for yourself! I’d love to have one on my bookshelf.
You can grab one here, through my Amazon associates link.
And if you’d like to keep up with the creator’s on Twitter, you can here.
Hey everyone! I’m posting a bonus today, because I like to break up the cover reveals on my blog so there’s a little variety, you know? So here we go! My favourite books I read last month.
First off, Leonardo 2 by Stephane Levallois.
Planet Earth, engaged in an intergalactic conflict, owes its salvation to the clone of Leonardo da Vinci and to the rebirth of his genius. Author Stéphane Levallois has created the fantastic universes of many of the big Hollywood blockbusters (Alien, King Kong (Skull Island), Harry Potter and many others). The result of two years of elaboration and work, this space opera exemplifies his talent in two areas that he masters to perfection: the universe of science fiction and art. To build his story and compose his boards, Levallois draws from the painted and drawn work of the Renaissance master, selecting a large number of drawings and paintings by Leonardo to represent the characters, vessels or even the architectures in his story. The grand scale result is stupefying as Leonardo’s everlasting visions are successfully projected into a stunning futuristic setting.
Second is The Cup and the Prince (Kingdom of Curses and Shadows #1) by Day Leitao.
One prince wants her out. Another wants her as a pawn. Someone wants her dead.
Zora wants to win the cup and tell them all to screw themselves.
Yes, 17-year-old Zora cheated her way into the Royal Games, but it was for a very good reason. Her ex-boyfriend thought she couldn’t attain glory on her own. Just because she was a girl. And he was the real cheater. So she took his place.
Now she’s competing for the legendary Blood Cup, representing the Dark Valley. It’s her chance to prove her worth and bring glory for her people. If she wins, of course.
But winning is far from easy. The younger prince thinks she’s a fragile damsel who doesn’t belong in the competition. Determined to eliminate her at all costs, he’s stacking the challenges against her. Zora hates him, hates him, hates him, and will do anything to prove him wrong.
The older prince is helping her, but the cost is getting Zora entangled in dangerous flirting games. Flirting, the last thing she wanted. And then there’s someone trying to kill her.
Third is The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes (The Hunger Games #0) by Suzanne Collins.
It is the morning of the reaping that will kick off the tenth annual Hunger Games. In the Capital, eighteen-year-old Coriolanus Snow is preparing for his one shot at glory as a mentor in the Games. The once-mighty house of Snow has fallen on hard times, its fate hanging on the slender chance that Coriolanus will be able to outcharm, outwit, and outmaneuver his fellow students to mentor the winning tribute.
The odds are against him. He’s been given the humiliating assignment of mentoring the female tribute from District 12, the lowest of the low. Their fates are now completely intertwined — every choice Coriolanus makes could lead to favor or failure, triumph or ruin. Inside the arena, it will be a fight to the death. Outside the arena, Coriolanus starts to feel for his doomed tribute… and must weigh his need to follow the rules against his desire to survive no matter what it takes.
The fourth book is Girl Minus X by Anne Stone.
Fifteen-year-old Dany is trying to survive with her little sister, Mac, in a world collapsing under the weight of a slow, creeping virus that erodes memory. As their identities slip away from them, the late-stage infected are quarantined by the Ministry of Disease Control in prison-hospices, military camps where some of Dany’s family have already been taken.
When a new and more virulent strain of the disease emerges and Dany begins to experience symptoms, the sisters are cast into crisis. As they try to escape the city together with Dany’s best friend, Eva, and history teacher, Mr. Faraday, Dany comes to see the ways in which her own fear has carried her trauma with her. As her past erodes, Dany’s present flickers into full fluorescence.
Elegant and thoughtful, Girl Minus X is a novel in which a young girl navigates her trauma in a world that can’t help but forget.
And the last one is Echoes of War (Echoes Trilogy #1) by Cheryl Campbell.
Decades of war started by a genocidal faction of aliens threatens the existence of any human or alien resisting their rule on Earth. Dani survives by scavenging enough supplies to live another day while avoiding the local military and human-hunting Wardens. But then she learns that she is part of the nearly immortal alien race of Echoes—not the human she’s always thought herself to be—and suddenly nothing in her life seems certain.
Following her discovery of her alien roots, Dani risks her well-being to save a boy from becoming a slave—a move that only serves to make her already-tenuous existence on the fringes of society in Maine even more unstable, and which forces her to revisit events and people from past lives she can’t remember. Dani believes the only way to defeat the Wardens and end their dominance is to unite the Commonwealth’s military and civilians, and she becomes resolved to play her part in this battle. Her attempts to change the bleak future facing the humans and Echoes living on Earth suffering under the Wardens will lead her to clash with a tyrant determined to kill her and all humankind—a confrontation that even her near-immortal heritage may not be able to help her survive.
Thanks for reading! Have you checked out or want to check out any of these books yet? Lets talk about them!
In a world eerily similar to our own, the people in The Clock are facing a different kind of pandemic in their world, one where a new viral kind of cancer is ravaging the planet. What do you do when millions of people are being killed by an untreatable form of cancer? Well, you can find out for yourself in this mysterious graphic novel.
3/5 Stars 128 pages Published October 13th 2020 by Image Comics
In this instance, a scientist named Jack is fighting for his life in a completely different way than everyone else in the book. After losing his wife to this viral cancer, his father is left to take care of his young daughter while he works day and night to find out not only why the cancer is happening, and why it seems to have showed up out of nowhere, and why it’s not reacting to treatment. This action packed graphic novel wasn’t my new favourite, but I did enjoy reading it. I liked the parallel’s to our own world right now, even though it took a much darker turn than I hope we ever will.
I also really enjoyed the art in this book. Much more classic comic art than others that I’ve read lately, it was really nice to look at and I think suited the story well. I don’t really have anything bad to say about it, but I just don’t really have anything to rave about it either. I am glad I got the chance to read it, though. If you’re looking for an exciting graphic novel to pick up next, than you might want to give this one a shot.
If you’d like to grab a copy, you can do so here through my Amazon Associates link.
And if you’d like to check out the creators on Twitter, you can find them here.
5/5 Stars 296 pages Published October 6th 2020 by Wolsak and Wynn Publishers Ltd
If you’ve read one of my recent blog posts about the horror genre, you’ll know that I have an overactive imagination, whether that’s from anxiety or not, this book really dug it’s way into my brain because of that. The horrifying scenes in this book, just vaguely described as a past trauma, are things that have stuck with me, and I think are so much worse than could have been created in a horror movie. This is just one of the reasons why I loved this book so much. Though it’s torture to be able to imagine those scenes so vividly, I was helplessly addicted to this book, and I couldn’t put it down until it was finished.
Following two young girls, Dany (15) and Mac (5), we see their lives as they battle not only past trauma, but also present day trauma due to being removed from their only family, living in a house where they can’t keep up the bills and are forced to have them shut off, slowly starving to death on basic necessities from the depleted food bank, and a very interesting kind of virus plucking people away from them, and changing the world as they know it very quickly. Two very gifted girls, one mute, who have to keep quiet about their problems so that they’re not sent back to the very trauma they once escaped from.
This book isn’t just about a virus that causes people to forget everything they know, even how to be a person, it’s about forcing old traumas up and out into the open where they don’t want to be seen. Though Dany just wants to forget about everything that’s happened to her sister, whether it’s their missing father, their mother who succumbed to the virus, their lives at both a bad foster home and a work farm, and now with their aunt being taken away to a prison camp to take care of the infected people, it’s very hard to when everything is being forced up. She has to learn to deal with it so that she can prepare for future traumas due to the virus that’s taking over her city.
I don’t think there was a single part of this book I didn’t enjoy. Some of it I will admit was very hard to read, specifically the past trauma parts of Dany’s brain, but it was so addicting that I couldn’t stop. It was horrifying and scary and really sad all at the same time, but it also taught me a lot of things about her. Why she’s so shut off from the world, and why she’s so tough. Why she’s willing to do the things she must to protect her little sister. I wouldn’t change a single thing in this book, and I can’t wait to get myself a paper copy so I can re read it.
If you love books about a different kind of infection induced apocalypse, like zombies but self destructive rather than the regular zombie kind of destructive, and you don’t mind pushing through the hard parts if it’ll teach you something, then this is the book for you. It’s horrifying and amazing and I’ll never forget it. I really can’t stress enough how much I loved this book, that’s why it took me some extra days to read through it because I could have easily just finished it quickly, but I wanted to drag it out so it wasn’t over so soon. This book makes me want to read more from the author.
If you’d like to grab a copy for yourself, I’ve added my Amazon Associates link here!
And if you’d like to keep up with the author, you can keep up with them on Twitter here!
Thanks for reading! I hope you’re doing well and staying safe.
radioactive book reviews 