One Second After

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I feel like have done nothing but apologize for the last few posts about my neglectfulness to my readers.  I mean I worked so hard to build a quality book blog and then I had to go and have a kid.  Naturally that sucked up all my free time and made it somewhat impossible to blog, much less read a dang book!  Chasing around a very active 11 month old little boy is exhausting so when the lights go out in his nursery, so do mine!  But here I go again, begging all of my readers to be patient with me and promising that I will write more posts however, I am not promising that they will be consistent and I am not promising that I won't start reviewing Green Eggs and Ham {haha}.  But I digress, this, after all, is strictly a "book blog" and not a "brag about my adorable, smart, funny, sweet, lovable, baby boy blog".  So lets get to why we are all here... To talk about William Forstchen's amazing book One Second After.

My obsession with Dystopia might have climaxed with One Second After.  Though, I am not sure you can call this book Dystopia.  There wasn't time for a Dystopian society to materialize because this book is literally about what happens ONE SECOND AFTER society crumbles.  It shows the breakdown of society as we know it; not the unrest of a rebuilt anti-utopia like we see in Hunger Games or The Handmaid's Tale.  This book may fall more firmly in the realm of prepping or survival.  At any rate this book is very very interesting.  As you can see I am really not myself in the post with snarky quips about my amazement or my OMGs about how fabulous this book is, but don't let that mislead you, I am out of my head about this book, however, my feelings fall more toward unrest and disturbance if that makes sense.  I read this book months ago and every single day after that I have thought about the fact that I. AM. NOT. PREPARED. 

So this book starts off with the introduction of it's characters as most books do.  We meet our main character John Matherson and his family {he is a widower and has two daughters - one with insulin dependent diabetes}, seconds after we meet this nice family in a quaint mountain town in North Carolina all goes dark.  I MEAN EVERYTHING PEOPLE!!!  Phones, lights, computers, cars, MP3 players, air planes are literally falling out of the sky.  EVERYTHING loses power!  The reason behind this NATION WIDE black out is an EMP {electro magnetic pulse, look it up it will scare the shit out of you}.  This EMP is a weapon of mass destruction that no one was ready for, and the effects of it's destruction are indefinite and devastating.  America is completely dark and there is absolutely positively NO communication to be had from coast to coast.  We are essentially cast into the dark ages and everything has collapsed in a matter of a second.  

Now that you are feeling as cheery as I am about the situation, lets talk about the fact that our main character's daughter is an insulin dependent diabetic.  There is no power so there is no way to keep anything cold, so lets go down that road for a few moments and see where it ends...  Also, were do we get food?  What do we do with the motorists that were stranded on the freeway?  What about things like sanitation, clean water, our loved ones that were away from home at the moment the EMP went off?  And these are just questions to ask in the first few days of such a destructive weapon.  What happens when Marshal Law is declared?  When common sicknesses start epidemics because there is no more medicine to fight them? What happens when people start getting desperate?  Are you as freaked out as I am yet....

No, your not?  Well let me just say that after you research what exactly an EMP is, you will start stocking up your beans and rice supply and start thinking about a plan to survive.  Seriously folks, this is something that could happen.  Not something some SiFi minded author dreamed up, and that my friends is why this new mom is having a freak out almost daily about this book.  I am glad I read it, however, I wish I never did...

The writing in this book is easy to read, not the best ever but good, I mean Forstchen isn't Hemingway but I hung on his every word so that's something.  I would highly recommend this to everyone just for the pure fact that it will give you an education.  A book club could discuss the hell out of it.  BUT if you are a new mom like myself, maybe you should wait until after your little nugget is a little older and your hormones are back to where they should be. 

RATING: 5 Stars

3 more reviews:

ParaJunkie

Growing Human

Small World Reads

One Second After by William R. Forstchen

{purchased on Amazon.com for my Kindle}

ASIN B002LATV16

If you liked One Second After by William R. Forstchen please read The Road by Cormic McCarthy

The Passage

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Wow.  November 13th was my last post...  I am so sorry for all of you that have followed my blog.  I did not die, I had a baby {a healthy 6lb 9oz adorable baby boy}!  Yep, from November - February I was reading TONS of "preparing for baby" books and no fiction what-so-ever.  Then after he was born in March I never had any time between poopy diapers, spit up, and learning to be a Mommy {along with running my business, and being a wife}.  Now that we are settling into a routine I have some more time to read and now I am just finding time to blog.  I have read quite a few books in the last few months.  I bought a Kindle so reading is much easier now that I have to have one arm to hold the little guy.  Luckily most of the books I have read recently have all be spectacular {only one FAIL among them}. So in the next few days I'll try and crank out some reviews so you can read and discuss!  First on the agenda is The Passage by Justin Cronin...

Oh. My. Goodness.  This book knocked my socks off!!!  Dystopia, vampires {not the sexy glittery kind, but the terrifying bat like kind that suck you dry or turn you into a monster}, survival, adventure; I was riveted from page one.  The book starts off with a series of emails between two scientists discussing a trip to the Amazon {I believe}, then the emails take a turn as one of the scientists heads out on this trip and bad things start to happen and everyone dies or nearly dies {death by bats - the flying kind not the Louisville Slugger kind}.   Then the book jumps to a private investigator that is commissioned to finding death row inmates and giving them the option to die by the needle or to be used in a military experiment.  Then you jump to a chapter in the eyes of a little girl that is left in a convent.  Then finally the P.I. and the girl cross paths because the P.I. gets the job of picking up this orphaned little girl at the convent so the military could do the same experiments on a child {newly orphaned, no paper trail, very shady, you get the picture}.  Then we jump to the military base where these experiments are taking place and we learn that the scientist from the beginning of the book is helping the military create an indestructible soldier, however the experiment has gone totally bad and the inmates/bat people {i.e. vampires, kinda} break out of their labs and start killing everyone or at least changing them into the vampire-beast things too.  Well it doesn't take to long before the United States is infested with these beasts like the plague and then the Nuclear Bombs drop.

OK now we jump 100 years into the future after the Nuclear fallout to this little settlement of survivors.  They have created this little settlement and have been happy and well for years but as always there is the question "is there anyone else out there?", plus lights what were created to keep the vampires out are starting to fail, so they have to head out into the wilderness in search of help or a new power source.  Well that is the rest of the story.  They set off to find the answer in this vampire-beast infested world.  And let me tell you it makes for an amazing read!  And even though this book is nearly around 800 pages you just want more when the last page is finished, but have no fear this is the beginning of a TRILOGY!!  Woot woot!!

Something else I have to mention is that the writing is out of this world.  The wording, the details, the cadence of the whole book is perfection.  There were times that I got so caught up in the flow of the writing that I had to go back and read it again to get the content.  And characters are very fleshed out, the prose are deep, and the mix of everything makes this one of the best books I have read in the last couple years.  This book has landed on my top 5 books of all times.

I don't think this book is for everyone though.  There is a lot of scary bits where I had to stop reading and wait for the day to come to read some more.  And there is a religious undertone that was very interesting that some may not get or very much like {but I enjoyed}.  I really really want my book club to read this so I can discuss it with someone because there is a lot to discuss in this book.  So if you want to chat with me about the book in the comment section please do!  Just let people know in the beginning of your post if you are including a spoiler.

All in all this is a must read if you are into scary, thriller, dystopia kind of stuff.  If you are more of a light hearted, fluffy, unicorn kind of person steer clear of this one it may just scare the dickens out of you. 

RATING: 5 Stars

3 more reviews of The Passage:

books i done read

Lovely Little Shelf

Charlotte Chase

The Passage by Justin Cronin

{Purchased on Amazon.com for my Kindle}

ISBN 0345504968

Pages 784

If you liked The Passage by Justin Cronin than read The Road by Cormic McCarthy

 

The Road

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Holy Cow.  Seriously.  This book blew my mind.  My mind is officially blown.  Whoo.  I don't really even have words.  I have been sitting on this review for a few days so that I could digest this book and think about everything that I had just finished reading and then I went back and reread quite a bit of the book again.  And after the second reading I had to redigest what I read again.  Now I am exhausted and I hope that the apocalypse doesn't happen tonight because I am emotionally spent after reading The Road.  On top of all the darkness that is The Road, Cormac McCarthy has written a beautiful piece of work, the imagery and depth of feeling in this book is remarkable.  Seriously y'all.  My mind is blown.  Thank you thank you Greg (over at The New Dork Review of Books) for putting this book on my radar.  I owe you a good book suggestion now!

The Road is a story of survival, dystopia, the love between a parent and their child, and also a little bit about hope.  It takes place in a post-apocalyptic world where vegetation and animals are extinct, the sun doesn't shine through the fall out ash, and the few people that are left roaming the land are DANGEROUS.  You follow the story of father and son that are headed south on The Road hoping that when they get to their undetermined destination something will be at the other end.  All the while they are trying to survive and "carry the fire" (the phrase that symbolizes goodness through out the book) even though the odds aren't in their favor.  Food is scarce, roving gangs of cannibals are everywhere, and the climate is HARSH.  The end of this crazy story is AMAZING!!!!  I was freaking the heck out when I read the last few pages, and I think that is when I can pin point when my mind became blown.

Something that I though was so appropriate was the fact that McCarthy didn't name his characters.  They were simply referred to as the man and the boy.  In a time where identity isn't important anymore it just fit perfectly.  I don't know that another story could be told with out character names.  At least not as well as The Road was.  In most reviews on this book you will read about how the landscape was a character in this book and I have to agree.  McCarthy painted a pretty bleak picture of what a post-apocalyptic world would look like.  I don't really know if you could have anything BUT a bleak picture of a post-apocalyptic world but McCarthy executes it superbly.  I devour dystopic and post-apocalyptic survival stories but The Road is by far the cream of the crop when it comes to this genera.  It won a Pulitzer Prize in 2007 and it surely deserved it.

There is so much I would love to discuss about this book but I can't do that with out giving away some spoilers so I am letting you know if you are reading and don't want the book to be spoiled stop reading this next paragraph.  I am going to just run through my mind blowing thought and then I am going to stop.  So don't read further if you don't want to know about then end....

OK, so at the end when the man dies and the boy steps out on the road and sees the man in the yellow parka.  The yellow parka man mentions that his group had been watching the man and the boy for a while.  It killed me that the whole time the boy and the man had been headed south to find "the good guys" and "the good guys" were behind them the entire time.  I don't know why this blew my mind, the irony in that just killed me.  After all that happened why couldn't they have figured that out before.  Then I was thinking that when the man and the boy were in the town where the boy saw the other little boy and he wanted to go back and make sure that the other little boy wasn't lost and scared, could that have been the same group?  The yellow parka man mentions that he has a little boy and a little girl.  Also something else that intrigued me was the way the boy was somewhat religious though religion was all but gone by the time he was born.  "Carrying the Fire" to me was kind of an ichthys symbol of "the good" or of God.  There are so many other little questions I would like a second opinion on.  Geez.

BOOK vs. MOVIE:  There is a movie of The Road that has fairly new and I have't had the chance to see it yet.  Actually I can't find it anywhere.  But I can't wait to get my hands on it because I am sure it is more intense than the book.  The book was intense but if you could see the pictures unfold in front of your eyes I would believe that it would be an edge of your seat kinda movie.  I'll review the movie when I finally find a copy to watch.

RATING: 5 Stars

3 More Reviews on The Road:

The New Dork Review of Books 

{Insert Suitably Snappy Title Here}

About Writing

The Road by Cormac McCarthy

ISBN 0307476316

Pages: 304

If you liked The Road you should try: The Handmaids Tale by Margaret Atwood