Monday, April 21, 2014

REVIEW: "After The End" by Amy Plum



After The End (After The End #1)
Author: Amy Plum
Genre: Young Adult, Dystopian, Post Apocalyptic, Romance
Expected Release Date: May 6, 2014
Review Written: January 7, 2014
Publisher: HarperCollins
Summary:

She’s searching for answers to her past. They’re hunting her to save their future.

World War III has left the world ravaged by nuclear radiation. A lucky few escaped to the Alaskan wilderness. They've survived for the last thirty years by living off the land, being one with nature, and hiding from whoever else might still be out there. At least, this is what Juneau has been told her entire life.

When Juneau returns from a hunting trip to discover that everyone in her clan has vanished, she sets off to find them. Leaving the boundaries of their land for the very first time, she learns something horrifying: There never was a war. Cities were never destroyed. The world is intact. Everything was a lie.

Now Juneau is adrift in a modern-day world she never knew existed. But while she's trying to find a way to rescue her friends and family, someone else is looking for her. Someone who knows the extraordinary truth about the secrets of her past. 

First Sentences: I crouch low to the ground, pressing my back to the ancient spruce tree, and raise my crossbow in one hand. Keeping my eye on the precious shard of mirror embedded in my weapon, I inch it out from behind the tree. In the reflection, I spot something moving behind a cedar across the snowy clearing
My Thoughts:
THAT ENDING! WHAT?! Oh my goodness. This was a great book. It had the perfect ending, as well. Right after finishing, I immediately got onto Goodreads to see when the sequel was expected to be released and remembered that it was an ARC that I'd just read and wouldn't be released for 4 months, so why would they have a sequel release planned already? I'm just so ANXIOUS!
There was no war. I still can't believe we were so close to this city, yet we knew nothing. How could my father and the other elders have been so mistaken? There's no way they could know what happened, I realize. They've been isolating themselves for thirty years. (ebook 14%)
This story was well written, in my opinion (I saw some repetitiveness, but I'm sure that will all be worked out by the time the finished copy is published). I really like how Amy Plum wrote this story in two points of view, from Juneau and Miles. I personally think that this was the best way to go about writing this book, because of how the story is plotted, I don't see having only one point of view giving us all the information needed to make the story complete. I really loved how Miles's and Juneau's life events were intertwined. And, for those of you that hate obvious romance in dystopian and fantasy, this is the book for you. I'm sort of a romance buff. I will root for love every single time. And, man will I tell you I was rooting hard through this book. But, Amy Plum did something right. She found a way to successfully push the romance aside as much as possible to truly focus on the main plot. I applaud her for this.

All in all, this was a pretty great story. I loved the premise of a clan that's isolated themselves in Alaska without realizing that a war they ran away from 30 years ago had never even happened. The lies. The deceit. This is such an amazing story. I gave it 4 stars on Goodreads and, in my opinion, it earned every single one of those stars.

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