Ashes by Ilsa J Bick

Ashes (Ashes, #1)

by Ilsa J Bick

A cataclysmic event. A dramatically changed world. A zombie army. Can three kids really survive... and who can they trust?

Alex has run away and is hiking through the wilderness with her dead parents' ashes, about to say goodbye to the life she no longer wants to live. But then the world suddenly changes. An electromagnetic pulse sweeps through the sky zapping every electronic device and killing the vast majority of adults. For those spared, it's a question of who can be trusted and who has changed...

Everyone still alive has turned - some for the better (those who acquired a superhuman sense) while others for the worse (those who acquired a taste for human flesh). Desperate to find out what happened and to avoid the zombies that are on the hunt, Alex meets up with Tom - an Army veteran who escaped one war only to find something worse at home - and Ellie, a young girl whose grandfather was killed by the electromagnetic pulse.

This improvised family will have to use every ounce of courage they have just to find food, shelter, while fighting off the 'Changed' and those desperate to stay alive.

A tense and involving adventure with shocks and sudden plot twists that will keep teen and adult readers gripped.

Reviewed by Angie on

3 of 5 stars

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I received a free digital copy through Net Galley.

Tired of the failed treatments for her brain tumor, 17 year old Alexandra heads off to go backpacking in the wilderness. While she's away an electromagnetic pulse devestates the Earth, and leaves few survivors. Soon Alex finds herself hiking through the woods with the world's most obnoxious 8 year old, trying to find help and figure out what the hell had just happened. Oh, and running from wild dogs and zombies! Eventually, they meet Tom, a military man who also survives the blast. What should have been an adventurous tale of survival and an intriguing mystery of what "the zap" was, was just a boring story of three relatively unlikeable people on an unconvention camping and road trip. Then the tale of one unlikeable person living in the safety of some weird-o cult town.

First words of praise: Short chapters! I never stop reading in the middle of a chapter, so I was happy that I had many options to take pause when I waned to, which was often. For a post-apocalyptic zombie novel, not a whole lot of action takes place. The ends of many of the chapters give the feeling of "oh now something's going to happen," but when the next chapter starts, it's a fews day later, and the author just vaguely states what had happened before the time jump. It was very frustrating and kept me from enjoying this one very much. The ending was interesting though, which is why I bumped this up to 3 stars instead of the 2 I was going to originally give it.

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Reading updates

  • Started reading
  • 20 July, 2011: Finished reading
  • 20 July, 2011: Reviewed