Ashfall (Ashfall, #1)

by Mike Mullin

Under the bubbling hot springs and geysers of Yellowstone National Park is a supervolcano. Most people don't know it's there. The caldera is so large that it can only be seen from a plane or satellite. It just could be overdue for an eruption, which would change the landscape and climate of our planet. For Alex, being left alone for the weekend means having the freedom to play computer games and hang out with his friends without hassle from his mother. Then the Yellowstone supervolcano erupts, plunging his hometown into a nightmare of darkness, ash, and violence. Alex begins a harrowing trek to seach for his family and finds help in Darla, a travel partner he meets along the way. Together they must find the strength and skills to survive and outlast an epic disaster.

• ISBN10: 1933718749
• ISBN13: 9781933718743
• Publish Date: 1 November 2012 (first published 1 January 2011)
• Publish Status: Transferred
• Publish Country: US
• Imprint: Tanglewood Press
• Format: Paperback (US Trade)
• Pages: 476
• Language: English

Reviews

[Angie]

Ashfall kind of scared the crap out of me. The volcano under Yellowstone National Park erupts and it is the worst disaster the world has seen in...ever. Alex is home alone for the weekend when a chunk of rock collapses his house. His neighbors take him in as they try to block out as much sound as possible. Eventually the noise from the eruption stops, but then comes the ash and the rain. Alex is desperate to find his family who are about two hours away by car. He packs up supplies, straps on some skis, and heads out for a two month journey.

I loved how Ashfall was based on actual science. Sure, there's been no supervolcano eruptions in human history, but there is still data on previous ones, including from Yellowstone. That's what made this so scary. It can actually happen! And I'm a bit closer to the volcano that Alex was! I couldn't help but think about what I would do in this situation, and really, all I came up with was to grab the closest puppy, sit in the closet and cry. Alex goes through hell! In the beginning, I had a hard time accepting a 15 year old heading out into that chaos, not knowing if he even had a family left to find. But eventually I just settled in and enjoyed the ride.

My only complaint about Ashfall, which kept me from loving it, was all of the food talk. We're told about every single morsel that Alex puts in his mouth during these two months. I know food is a major concern in a disaster like this, but I really didn't need that level of detail. It was also annoying in the first half, because Alex eats whenever he's hungry, and then notices that he's probably going to run out of food sooner than he thought. Well, duh! This boy doesn't know how to ration! You can't just eat whenever and however much when you have a limited supply and no way to get more! He does learn once he's empty handed, starving, and scavenging for Skittles.

Ashfall was pretty great overall though. Natural disasters are terrifying things, and reading about Alex's trials made them more real. While this is categorized as Dystopian, I think it's more of a survivalist novel. It's all about staying alive, and the government plays a very small, almost non-existent role in this one. Although I'm sure that's going to change in the following books. This is the immediate aftermath of a supervolcano eruption, and I can't wait to see what happens next!

Read more of my reviews at Pinkindle Reads & Reviews.

[readingwithwrin]

One of the best end of the world book I've read. Can't wait to read the next one!

[Terri M. LeBlanc]

About a year ago, my friend and author, Jade Eby, introduced me to the Ashfall series by Mike Mullin. The trilogy takes place in eastern Iowa and northern Illinois after the super volcano that sits under Yellowstone Park explodes burying the Midwest in ash and triggering an extreme winter. For me, this series is gut-wrenchingly realistic.

Read the rest of my review of the series on my blog, Second Run Reviews.

[Kelly]

A shattering and suspenseful end of the world novel and loved every moment. Darla's character is awesome. She's sassy and a survivor. Looking forward to the next in the series and hoping the main focus shifts to Darla.

[Amber]

Really enjoyed this one, I can't wait to read the sequel! I'm now really interested in reading about supervolcanoes.

Full review here: http://booksofamber.blogspot.co.uk/2012/08/ashfall-by-mike-mullin.html

----

There needs to be more disaster novels like this one! I don't know about you, but I love reading about natural disasters in fiction, because I love reading about how the government reacts, how the 'normal' people find the strength to survive and all that jazz.

Ashfall is action packed and quicks off right from the start when a huge rock (from the supervolcano) hits Alex's house and he's forced to leave. His parents had left earlier that day to go to his uncle's farm, so Alex is left worrying over them and he's desperate to find them.

Mike Mullin certainly knows how to pack a punch. There are so many gory scenes in this book, it's not for the faint hearted, and the author does an amazing job of making you feel for the characters involved. I felt ill at some points because, while the descriptions weren't overly graphic, there were some shocking moments and it really made my stomach tighten.

Trigger warning: While the act is not described, there is implied rape. I wanted to give a warning because some people may feel extremely unsettled by it.

Ashfall is a fantastic adventure story that will stay with me for a long time. Alex was a great character, and while he was a bit hopeless at the beginning, he really started to learn from his mistakes by the end. I should hope so, too, because those mistakes nearly got him killed numerous times.

I loved Alex's relationship with Darla. It didn't feel forced in the slightest and they really took their time to fall for each other. It was obvious it was coming, but I started to root for them way before it happened. Darla was the perfect match for Alex, and I really feel that they balance each other out. Darla is a BAMF!

I highly suggest reading this book if you're a fan of adventure novels, or if you're looking for a great story told from a guy's point of view. Those are rare in YA! I don't think there's anything I didn't like about this book because I was kept entertained all the way through.

I can't wait to read the second novel which comes out in October of this year!

[Ashley]

booknook — Young Adult book reviews

This book is freakin' scary. For some reason I wasn't super incredibly excited to read it. I wasn't unexcited, I just wasn't looking forward to it the most. But wow, Ashfall has probably affected me the most out of all the books I've read this year. This book will make you think, and wonder, and fear, and then go do research to see if it could actually happen. Because it could actually happen, and that's what makes this book so terrifying. Before I even finished reading, I started doing loads and loads of research, Googling all about the "Yellowstone supervolcano" and soaking up a bunch of information.

In addition to being a total shocker, Ashfall was heart-wrenching. It kind of reminded me of the movie The Day After Tomorrow. That movie is about a devastating disaster, and then a father trekking from Philadelphia to Manhattan to save his son. In Ashfall, the Yellowstone supervolcano errupts, and Alex decides to trek over a hundred miles to get back to his family. The devotion and determination is really moving.

Ashfall was actually funnier than I thought it would be! I mean it wasn't exactly in the humour genre, but Alex had hilarious thoughts sometimes and there were just little snippets here and there that made me laugh! Like this quote:

Darla had been doing something by the fire. Now she returned and began stripping the blanket off me. I grabbed it before she could pull it away from my groin, to preserve my modesty.

"Let go. There's nothing there I haven't seen. Who do you think undressed you, anyway? And honestly, I've seen better equipment on goats."

Alex had such an awesome personality and I loved reading from his point of view. He's kind of a cool kid who clearly used to be a bit awkward and antisocial. He was sucked into video games and books and didn't seem to enjoy the "real world" that much. Maybe that's part of why he's so blunt and has such an awesome take on everything.

There were a few times where I felt that Ashfall was getting a little slow, but that quickly disappeared once I got to the last third of the book. There were some huge plot progressions and the romance started. OH MY GOD, THE ROMANCE! I absolutely adored the romance in Ashfall. It was so real.. I mean Alex and Darla had great chemistry, but Mike Mullin also included some of the awkward parts of a romance, and that's what made it feel so real. Like two people talking about whether or not they're virgins, considering having sex, and so on. Usually books make those kind of things sound so easy and just brush over them. But in Ashfall, those conversations are kind of awkward, which is totally awesome!

As a heads up, there are a few pretty violent and/or gruesome scenes in Ashfall. There's some killing, detailed descriptions of gutting animals, horrible living conditions, starvation, etc. Some of them were pretty disgusting, but it was also very realistic. I mean with no food, no help, and no communication, people are hunting animals and prepare their own meat, raiding and looting, defending themselves from intruders, and so on! But if you're squeamish, just beware!

The loss of humanity is a huge thing in Ashfall. I already alluded to it a bit, but in the book we really see how apocalypse brings out the worst in some people. There are those who will do absolutely anything to get their hands on food and supplies — including murder. Some people go about it with violence, and others go about it with dirty politics. Seeing these things happen in Ashfall is so saddening and eye opening. It's terrifying to imagine that there are people who would do those kinds of things.

Ashfall is a terrifyingly realistic post-apocalyptic book and I'm so glad I got the chance to read it! It has my brain totally alive and buzzing, imagining the possibility of disaster and fearing the worst. But Ashfall also gives you a glimmer of hope. Despite all the horrible things in the world, great things can still happen. Romance can still be found and families can find a way to stay together!

As seen at: Miss Book Reviews

I was pulled into this book right from the get go!

Ashfall:
Ashfall was a pretty horrifying account of what could happen if a super volcano erupted, changing the face of the earth. Quite literally.

Alex is a teenage boy that is left alone for the weekend, his parents and younger sister have gone to visit their uncle who lives in another city. The first thing that happens is that Alex’s house practically falls on him. Alex has no idea what’s happened, he realises a fire has started while he is still trapped in the house underneath his furniture. After he makes it out he finds out it was caused by something falling from the sky but he doesn’t have much time to ponder what it was just then. I found the beginning to be very exciting and I couldn’t turn the pages fast enough.

The majority of this book is of Alex travelling to his uncles by foot to try and find his family. Because of the ashfall he has to figure out a way to traverse better than walking, he figures out ski’s do just the trick. Along the way Alex encounters people who are friendly, dangerous, desperate and he get’s into harmful trouble.

It was addicting:
I really liked this book. I found it incredibly hard to put down. The first night I started reading this I went to bed at 4:30am one morning because I kept thinking ‘I’ll stop at the next chapter’, every single chapter till I realised that if I didn’t go to sleep then and there then I wouldn’t sleep at all that night. I was pretty grumpy with myself the next day…

I loved that there were scary parts to this book, Ashfall didn’t gloss over the fear or the terror. It didn’t push aside the true nature that may arise out of people in the act of survival. I really liked that there was a lot of real danger. It made it more realistic and terrifying to think about.

Minor feelings:
One of the only things that stopped me from rating this any higher was that at times I was confused as to what was going on because of lack of description in how things happened. I found myself suddenly stopping and wondering “Wait. How did that happen?”, I would then re-read a few paragraphs to try and figure out what I missed. Only to realise I hadn’t missed anything. I had read how said event happened in one word or sentence, and that’s how I missed it. Because the first time I read that one word or sentence I had gotten another meaning from what it was actually meaning.

Errr… I realise that was a horrible explanation. But I don’t know how else to word it. To me that seems that it wasn’t written well enough to get it’s point across, but those moments happened sparsely.

The only other thing that played on my mind was the romance, it was cute, and understandable. But I felt like towards the end third of the book there was hardly any chemistry between Alex and Darla. I knew Alex liked Darla but it felt like a strong friendship more than a romance. I felt like there was a crucial element missing for me to believe that it was a romance rather than only a friendship.

Thought provoking:
While reading this book I kept making a mental list of the emergency kit (More like emergency house) I needed to prepare in case a volcano erupted here in New Zealand, or the dead rose from the ground (I’ve had zombies on my mind since I started watching The Walking Dead). Then I realised that if a volcano erupted here we’re screwed because NZ is too small to run far enough a way from something like that. Well if you’re anywhere near the eruption, which could be half the country depending which volcano. And if a zombie apocalypse happened we’re also screwed because not many people own, have a license to use, or know how to get a gun. So we would pretty much be dead anyway. … But I digress.

Ashfall was an incredibly enjoyable book about what one boy has to endure to find his family in an end of civilisation crisis.

[celinenyx]

Dystopians seem to be the new vampires. I loved the new trend - but after a while they started to blur together. I think Ashfall which has been published last year is a breath of fresh air in the young-adult genre.

Alex is home alone when the biggest natural disaster of the century happens. He doesn't know it yet, but the Yellowstone supervulcano has erupted, shrouding the sky in darkness and covering the ground with ash. Will Alex be able to find his family? Or will he become one of the many victims of the disaster?

Ashfall is a very realistic post-apocalyptic book with dystopian elements. It's one of those books that is so painfully real that it makes you uncomfortable. This could actually happen - there are some notes in the back about the facts that made up this book.

I loved how well-researched this book is. I watched Discovery Channel instead of Disney films when growing up, and a lot of details I encountered in the book made me think "ohh, good job incorporating that into the story!".

Young-adult books are very much dominated by girl point-of-view books. I was happy to see that Mr Mullin not only presented a likeable boy, but also one of the strongest girl love interests I've encountered so far. Darla is a wonderful character. She's literally stronger than Alex which I thought was brilliant, and she's a mechanic that can fix about everything. I'm impressed and a little sad at the same time that a male author writes a better female character than so many female writers.

I've read some complaints that Alex only thought about sex and that he just wanted to do Darla. I completely disagree. He truly cares for her, and sex is secondary to that. I found the relationship between Alex and Darla realistic. Which sixteen and eighteen year olds don't think about sex? In most YA girl point-of-view books sex takes a very background role. They don't think much about it, if at all. I'm not sure why. Is it (still) a taboo subject for girls? Are writers afraid they might come across as sluts? All I know is that the sex part was beautifully handled in Ashfall, and it's safe to read for a slightly younger audience, as the scene fades out before any naked stuff happens.

The dystopian elements is where it went a little bit down-hill for me. In fact, it's probably just a cultural difference between me, a girl from the Netherlands, and the intended audience over there in the States. I'm really not afraid that the government will restrict my movements and that the army kind of takes over the country. I'm not afraid that every person you meet has a gun, because to be honest nobody has a gun here. You would have to import it illegally, and I'm sure that's not going to happen if a volcano goes boom. I'm sure it might be scary for people from the USA, but it's one of those things that doesn't work so well for the people overseas.

I would recommend this book in a second for your son/brother or any other male in your family. About halfway into the book I started poking my boyfriend "Read this! You'll love it!". Girls that like their books dark and realistic, feel free to give it a try too.

[inlibrisveritas]

If I were to try to describe this in five words I think I would choose: Emotional, real, scary, fantastic, and gripping. And even then I don't think that sums it up well enough to be satisfied. I pretty much love it, I love it the way a mother loves her child...okay maybe not that much because I can't see myself carry this around for 9 months and then having it near me for the next 18 years (though hopefully it will be on my shelf for as long as possible). But I do love it, just not in any way that someone other then a book lover can understand. Okay...now that I've gotten that out of my system, or at least down to a manageable level I'll try to talk about the book without assaulting your eyes with my professions of love and book PDA.

First off I'm am so pleased to have a guy main character! So refreshing! I may be a female but I can honestly say that sometimes I just get tired of reading about woman, and I usually end up more frustrated with females then males. Alex is great. He's not a Bear Grylles in disguise kind of guy, nor is he overly sheltered nerd who is going to end up whining most of the time. He's normal by majority of society's standards and more importantly, he's relate-able. He's a pretty easy guy to understand and he doesn't constantly bash you over the head with his enormous grief about one thing or another. Which is something I think that Mullin did an excellent job with. There are so many things that happen in this book that would tear a person down and if perhaps some other author had been writing this you would have heard about how terrible each instance was until you no longer cared, but Mullin did it perfectly. Given the overall situation he added in the believable amount of emotions without going overboard and smothering you with them, and you can easily believe and see how the character deals with it over time without being told constantly. Darla is also a fantastic character and the perfect...unperfect...match for Alex. In most situations those two would probably have past each other with maybe a glance or smile, and they had very little in common before the volcano. But the way the two came together, how they got to know each other, and how they stick together is something that easy to see in your mind and easy to believe.

The main plot is where this book leaves me with staring at the keyboard trying to put my thoughts into words. While we may never, and hopefully never will, see this event come to pass it is something that can become a reality without too much thought on the hows and whys. The supervolcano under Yellowstone is real, and it's something that I personally have found unnerving since I learned what it truly was and the power it holds. With in the first few chapters, pages even, I could tell the amount of research and knowledge that went into this book was enormous. And yet again Mullin handles all the details, big and small, with perfection. He doesn't try to spell out every little thing and he doesn't explain things in such a way that it leaves you scrambling for a dictionary. The gritty and sometimes delicate issues dealt with in the book range from simple need of female products to nearly all the atrocities that humans are capable of in the name of survival. It's not overly sensitive by spoon feeding you each thing and it doesn't spell out every gory little detail, but it's described in a way that you understand it all. At points I was practically cringing, or wide-eyed with shock...other moments I had a smile on my face. I think that all of this has a lot to do with the fact that it is written in Alex's voice, he tells you what he saw and what he felt. So you get that personal feel for what's happening and by the time I was finished I had already made a checklist for my emergency kits.

So the big question is, would I recommend this book? To which I promptly answer with a semi high pitched sequel of yes! It's certainly not something to give or read to the younger ones but anyone in high school is well acquainted with a good deal of the subjects so this will be fine, if not perfect. I can't wait for the next one to come out as I'm really curious to know what's going to happen and how they deal with a volcanic winter.

I received this from Tanglewood and Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.