Having read all of Christina’s previous books — which i’ve extremely enjoyed — i had very high hopes for this book: alas, it was not to be.
So “Red”, our protagonist and narator, is on a journey to her Grandma’s house across several hundred miles of the USA after a coughing plague has culled nearly all the people: basically it’s a post-apocalyptic survival story.
And the whole book is taken up with the first half of this journey until there’s an endoparasitoid-bursting-out-the-chest-thing — WTF!!! Remember Alien and Sigourney Weaver? Yeah, that’s what an endoparasitoid-bursting-out-the-chest-thing is.
The army turn up and the soldier guy who chases the endoparasitoid-bursting-out-the-chest-things admits to Red that the government made it in a lab. He lets Red carry on with her journey instead of taking her to the quarantine camp, and in a few pages Red arrives at her Grandma’s. It’s like the second half of Red’s journey didn’t happen, like she was just magically transported to her Grandma’s. And no explanation as to the endoparasitoid and why the government would make such a thing.
And it’s this one single, silly, ridiculous idea of an endoparasitoid thrown into the story with no purpose whatsoever that completely ruins the book — and also the second half of Red’s journey being skipped over as though it didn’t really happen, or was in a completely different world to the first half.
We don’t even get to know how Grandma has been surviving or anything.
Basically, the ending is utter garbage and totally ruins the whole story. It’s just a total nonsensical ending.
It just left me which such a disappointment. This is far below Christina’s usual standard.
Ho hum: i suppose we all have to write something crap once in a while.
