Alas, Babylon (End of the World Challenge II #3 of 4)

What would have happened to America if the Soviets had actually dropped atomic bombs all over the country? It is this question that Pat Frank explores in his apocalyptic novel Alas, Babylon. Reading this book here in 2009 is a little scary...the threats are a bit different but still read. But this book was written in 1959, during the arms race with Russia and only a few years after Sputnik was launched.
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The story revolved around Randy Bragg, a bachelor living in a small Florida town. When his brother Mark sends his family to live with Randy, Randy know that Mark's warnings about an imminent nuclear attack were no overreaction. And it comes. And it is devastating.

It is not just the radiation that is terrifying, it is the loss of electricity, the onset of disease, the lack of food, the lawlessness. Randy and the people he cares about have to navigate a completely new society, hoping that eventually they can create one in which they are not fighting for survival every day.

I loved this book. I loved it and was frightened by it and appreciated it what it must have been like to read this book back in the 1950s/60s. It is an apocalyptic story that depicts a fairly plausible series of events - and that's why it is so alarming.

Life as We Knew It (End of the World Challenge II #1 of 4)

Susan Beth Pfeffer scared the daylights out of me. This book was not gory, not ax murder terrifying, I don't know what words to use exactly. The book is Miranda's journal. She is a sophmore in high school being a typical self-absorbed teenager. However, things change a bit when a meteor hits the moon and knocks it out of its orbit, closer to earth.

Then come the disasters. Floods, volcanos, a long winter caused by ash in the sky. Miranda, her two brothers, and her parents must try to figure out how to survive on what they managed to get before the stores ran out of food, the gas stations ran out of gas, and the hospital ran out of medicine.

My reaction to this book is different than it would be if I was a teenager. In this book, I was Miranda's mother - I was the one trying to hold my family together and make us survive. I wanted to slap Miranda sometimes for being a teenager, but that's what made the book real. She didn't turn into a superhero, she grew and changed in a way that made sense, that was honest. It made me want to get my emergency supplies ready just in case. I am reviewing this book nearly a month after I read it and I still think about it. How would I live, how would I help my children live through this kind of disaster? I just don't know.

The Other Side of the Island (YA Challenge 2009 #9 of 12)

Allegra Goodman captures a truly frightening picture of the future in this post-apocalyptic YA novel. After a massive flood, the people left alive in North America are living on islands and are governed by "Mother Earth." Mother Earth controls the weather and also people's minds. She does all these things in the name of peace and safety but there is definitely a malevolent feel to the whole society. But Honor's parents don't buy into Mother Earth's rules and regulations. They have a second child when it's just not done, they study the stars away from where the false skies cover the community, and they believe that Mother Earth must be overthrown. And Honor, a young girl who desperately wants to fit in but loves her parents is caught between safety and freedom.

I couldn't put this one down. It's a wonderfully creative dystopian novel with lots of possibilities for further books. The third-person narrator brought Honor's strengths and flaws out in such a way that I felt like I knew her when the book was over.

The Hunger Games (Y.A. Challenge #3 of 12)

I have to say, I always thought that whole "I couldn't put the book down" cliche was a bit overdone. That said, I literally could not put this book by Suzanne Collins down. I picked it up and ended up not getting up off my bed for the next however many hours. This is why.

Katniss lives in a dangerous time and place. Her home is in the Twelfth District of Panem, the country that is now where North America used to be. The dictatorial and brutal Capitol of Panem holds an annual "Hunger Games" to keep its outlying districts in check. The Hunger Games are a televised fight to the death consisting of 24 teenagers who are trapped in an arena filled with dangers other than the other contestants. The last man or woman standing is the victor.

Katniss is tough. She wants to live. She has a mother and sister and best friend and isn't going to go down easily. But she also wants to somehow maintain her humanity in an incredibly desperate and frightening situation. The other contestant from Twelfth District is Peeta, a boy who at one point saved Katniss and her family from starvation. How can she bring herself to kill him? How can she let herself be killed by him?

Wow this book had me absolutely hooked. I will say, and thank you Corinne for warning me about this fact, the end of Hunger Games is not the end of the story. There is definitely that to-be-continued ending. And I can't wait to read on.