In the After is the first in Lunetta's debut duology. In this young adult dystopian thriller, Amy Harris survives when aliens land on the planet and wipe out most of humanity. Thanks to a combination of a father who is interested in saving the environment and a mother who is paranoid for safety, Amy's house is a safe haven for her while she learns the rules about how to stay safe from the aliens.
She soon adopts a child, teaching her how to be stealthy and silent, scavenge for necessities, and live in this strange normal. But, as happens so often in dystopian novels like this, the real enemy turns out to be the humans Amy meets along the way. I liked the first part of the book, when Amy was surviving out there, figuring out how things worked, using her skills and cleverness to get her way out of potential problems. Once she arrives at the new place, though, all of the things that made Amy so compelling on her own just started to annoy me. Also, all the adults were so annoying.
But. A lot of that is on me because young adult literature is not always my jam. I thought Lunetta set Amy up as a smart badass and then took it all away from her. But then the ending happened and now I'm excited to see what else Amy can do in this world.
3.5/5 stars and I'm excited for the next book.
In the End is the second part of this duology and while it started with the same promise as In the After, with Amy out in the world by herself trying to survive, the whole thing came to a fizzling end. Amy manages to find her way to Fort Black, where she tries to find a researcher who can help her sister. But Fort Black was a prison in the before times and is filled with angry, violent men. All the available women must have a man to protect them. Amy is obviously not on board with this plan and all sorts of terrible things happen to her as she seems to ignore this basic fact about Fort Black over and over again. Anyway, she eventually finds the researcher and just when you think things are going to get good...the book ends. 3/5 stars.
I don't know that I'd recommend these two books all that strongly. They're fine. But if you miss them, you're not missing out on much.
I very much like dystopian fiction. In the "youth" category, I would believe my favorite "series" of a sort are "The Giver" series of books by Lois Lowry (Wow.... I just realized "The Giver" is now nearly 30 years old!). Thank you for the book review! I will potentially look at them even though your review was suggesting they are somewhat "middle-of-the-road".
ReplyDeleteI found your blog by way of "AC's" blog. I hope to come back often!
PipeTobacco
Yes, these books were definitely right down the middle. If dystopian is your genre, you might want to check them out.
DeleteHmm, these sound kind of interesting. But is this going to be a trilogy? Seems like a strange place for the story to end.
ReplyDeleteNo, it's just the two. I did find the ending abrupt, but I honestly don't know what I want from one of these books when most people die and there are only a handful of survivors. I am not certain there's an ending I'd like!
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