White Horse

by Alex Adams

A post-apocalyptic thriller chronicling one woman's quest to nurture those she holds dear against the backdrop of a shockingly changed world
When I wake the world is gone. Only fragments remain. And then I remember . . .
Before: Her life may have taken a couple of wrong turns but Zoe is trying to make the best of what she has. A part-time cleaning job to pay for college, a weekly appointment with her therapist to straighten out the problems in her life. The same problems that any thirty-year-old would have. Nothing major. Nothing life-threatening. A few bad dream, that's all.
After: The only thought that remains is survival. Survival in a desolate, post-apocalyptic world. For herself. For her unborn baby.
But help is scarce in a world where untold horrors exist around every corner, where food and water are in desperately short supply, and the only chance of happiness is half a world away.
Adams has an excellent sense of timing, delivering gasp-inducing moments that punctuate her nightmare with verve. But it's Zoe's clear-eyed sense of self-preservation that will keep readers waiting for Adams' follow-up.- Kirkus

• ISBN10: 1451643004
• ISBN13: 9781451643008
• Publish Date: 18 December 2012 (first published 17 April 2012)
• Publish Status: Active
• Imprint: Atria Books
• Format: Paperback (US Trade)
• Pages: 336
• Language: English

Reviews

[layawaydragon]

See the full review at my blog:

3.5 stars (rounded up to 4 for Goodreads)
Good, want to call it great but there's several big issues for me.

First, a word of warning. There’s graphic scenes of death, murder, DIY abortion, and rape. This is not a book for the squeamish or faint of heart. The violence style isn’t the gratuitous horror/action movie type though. Often it’s described in pieces, parts, vagueness or clinical detachment - which makes what happens all the more haunting. There’s also a really misogynist douche of a bad guy and insults about weight in the beginning of the book.

THE LIST...because brevity is not my strong suit
Likes
+ Realistic portrayal of post apocalyptic society. Not the happy band of travelers looking out for one another, good finding it’s way through. This is sheer dumb luck, good people dying and those without scruples living another day. As dark, gritty & grim as the apocalypse would be.
+ I liked the writing style, though it could get heavy handed at times
+ I liked the characters, especially Zoe, in both Then and Now. I got a good sense of who they were, their personalities and found them personable.
+ Was hooked and intrigued by the mystery of the jar
+ Thought the unreliable narrator was well done and I liked the journey with this extra bit of mystery.
+ Loved the last line of this book so much.


Dislikes
- Misleading US Blurb. This didn’t affect my reading enjoyment but it has for others and I don't like when the blurb feels off.
- The events on the tail end of the middle, leading up the the climax are pushing it. Convenient, contrived, convoluted, and flies in the face of how realistic and grounded the rest of the book it is. Of course, it might make sense in later books, being a trilogy and all, but I was annoyed with it while reading.
- The villains are lackluster. Standard, bland, 2-D. Can’t even say they are the worst characters, because they are caricatures. There’s a star missing just for this.


Most other reviews call it hopeful and like White Horse or call it depressing and don’t like it. I didn’t see much hope, just a lone person clinging to a piece of driftwood during a hurricane , but I still enjoyed the book. Maybe I’m just more pragmatic and reserved in jumping from joy for Zoe since I immediately thought how much it would suck dying the next day. At least she made the journey worth it though. I loved how realistic it is. This book delves into the worse side of humanity and doesn’t let us forget as repulsive as we find it - it’s still human. White Horse is more about what’s acceptable, what ideals, what morals do you hold on to when everything else goes to hell but the reminder is there - evil is still human. It’s an intense internal struggle to deal with how one was raised when that world no longer exists and there’s the external struggle of learning to survive in a new world.

The graphic scenes not there for shock, awe or gore factor (though it does up the ante) but because it’s being realistic. There’s terrible things going on now even with laws, prisons, and societal expectation. It’s all part of being human, as much as we try to shun and other such actions as unhuman. I love how Zoe brings this up and doesn’t go all “Slaughter the abominations!”. That viewpoint is in the book but it’s not seen as good thing. Sure, we’d all like to be noble, brave survivors saving the day and Zoe tries because she wants that too. She wants to cling to something good in a world gone dark, it’s just pesky reality gets in the way. We go on because we can, because we must, because of instinct and sometimes being a survivor really fucking sucks.

I love how it brought up the issues of rape and abortion in a post-apocalyptic world. Hell, I worry about such things now living in a country that doesn’t respect, protect or uphold women’s rights. I may have problems with improbability during the events right before the ending but the last line in this book is killer. Seriously, it’s awesome, impacting and unexpected. The villains are another sore spot for me. I found them 2-D and stereotypical. They just made me sigh, and want more instead of the stupid standard in speculative fiction.

I loved the alternating time line of Then and Now. I love the mystery and suspense of the jar. It’s tense and things goes wrong. Terribly wrong with little things we cling to for comfort as well as survival. Shit happens. It’s dark, gritty, deadly and grim. What else could you expect from the apocalypse? And I was reading for the story, not a How to Survive the End of the World guide because that depends so much on how the world ended anyways. There’s plenty of other places to get that survivalist information if you want it, I just wanted a good story. While there’s a few issues with White Horse, I got what I wanted.

[kimbacaffeinate]

White Horse is the first novel in the White Horse trilogy and shares the beginning of a post-apocalyptic dystopian world and its downfall. It is dark, gritty, and eerily real. Adam shares with us the many facets of man at his best and worst. She immediately captured my attention with her riveting world-building and her raw, fleshed out characters. This tale immediately made me think of the Passage by John Cronin and the awesomeness I felt while embarking on that journey. Within the first few pages I knew I had in my hands a novel I would not soon forget.

The tale introduces us to Zoe, a thirty one year old janitor at Pope Pharmaceuticals. The President of the United States announces humans are no longer a viable species as a mass epidemic begins to wipe out the population. Slowly the world around Zoe crumbles and she begins to lose loved ones and friends. She begins to witness horrible changes and suspect that her employer is involved. When she is left alone, she embarks on a journey that will take her half way across the world. She travels for hope, and a secret she carries. Along the way she encounters both horrors and humanity at its best. She uncovers truths and learns that we are what we choose to be. The tale that unfolds is enthralling and engaging.

Zoe is flawed, complicated and very intelligent. She chose to work as a janitor, since it required little thinking and Adams does an excellent job of fleshing her out. Zoe became real, and I understood what compelled her. The transformation of her character, her compassion and her capacity to love endeared her to me. Nick was a therapist before the outbreak, went to war and returns to find everyone he loved is gone. He reconnects with Zoe his former patient and they lean on each other. Their relationship was complicated, and compelled Zoe to act. Other characters added to the tale, like the evil Swiss who made my insides curdle.

The story Adams shares has a realism to it that is both horrifying and riveting. Her writing style compels you to read on as she brings both the characters and landscape to life. The tale flowed wonderfully and the tension built as we dare to hope with Zoe. We are presented with the tale in two parts as we travel back and forth between “Then” and “Now”. While in the then we get a better understanding of the world, the epidemic and Zoe. We begin to understand why she has embarked on this quest to travel half way around the world. When we are in the now we face the brutal and dark reality of the new world. Each transition was labeled, and not once did I mind traveling back and forth as I found them equally compelling. With Zoe we travel by air, by land and sea and along the way we encounter humanity at its best and worse. Some humans were immune to the virus, but others survived and it changed them. The transformation was both fascinating and creepy! If you are familiar with the chapter of Revelations in the Bible, then the title of this book will not be lost on you. In the tale an evangelist declares the virus is the first horse of the apocalypse, often referred to as the White Horse. Adams brought all of the threads throughout this novel together and gave me an ending that excited me, and has me anxious for the next chapter. While all of my questions were not answered, those that were wowed me and have me eager to learn more.
I want to thank Simon and Schuster for providing this ARC in exchange for my unbiased review. Kimba @ Caffeinated Book Reviewer