Tagged: miles
After the End by Amy Plum
(Cover picture courtesy of Amy Plum’s website.)
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.
[Full disclosure: I requested and received a free paperback from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.]
A post apocalyptic book that isn’t actually a post apocalyptic book? No Insta-Love? Just a hint of magic? If any of these sound interesting, you’ll like After the End.
I began reading this book with low expectations. In the beginning it seemed like your pretty typical YA novel but then Amy Plum put some very interesting twists in to throw readers for a loop. Even though the blurb spoils the big reveal, it’s still kind of a shock to learn that Juneau’s whole life has been a lie. Her elders have lied to her for years and now suddenly she has to cope in a modern world she’s only read about in outdated encyclopedias.
Juneau and Miles are both three dimensional characters that are very, very different. Miles at first seems like your typical spoiled rich boy, but as he spends time with Juneau I like how he sort of grows out of that attitude and tries to do things for himself. Juneau thinks Miles is an idiot for not knowing how to do these things but eventually accepts that he is knowledgeable too, just in a different way. As you’ve probably guessed by now they fall in love but it’s by no means Insta-Love and there are a lot of hurdles along the way.
The plot was surprisingly fast-paced. It’s not a one-sitting book, but it is the kind of book you want to sneak away to read as often as you can, even if it’s only a couple of pages at the time. I would have liked some more description in some places, but Amy Plum’s writing is still excellent and she has a good sense of how to balance action and description. The points of views also change between Juneau and Miles at a more natural rate so it doesn’t feel like Amy Plum changed points of view just for the sake of dragging the plot along.
Basically, this is not your typical post-apocalyptic book and because of that (and the cliffhanger ending) I can’t wait to read the rest of the series.
I give this book 4.5/5 stars.