Ashfall

This post first published September 11, 2011.

Author: Mike Mullin
Published: October 11, 2011
Publisher: Tanglewood Press
Series: Ashfall #1
466 pages (galley) 
 
Thanks for the wonderful people over at Tanglewood Press, I got a copy of this eARC, from debut author Mike Mullin. I read this back in July, and it was a different book for me, but different in a good way. I’ve never read a YA book that dealt with survival in a realistic apocalyptic situation. By realistic, I mean this isn’t a dystpian novel or sci-fi or paranormal. It takes place in our present-time.

This is the story of what would happen if a supervolcano erupted; specifically, what would happen in the volcano in Yellowstone erupted. No supervolcano has ever erupted in recorded human history, so you can consider this book speculative if you like. It’s a pretty scary look into what would happen not only to the land but also to people and society as a whole. If a supervolcano erupted, it’s seriously bad news.

Alex is a fifteen year old boy who is the main character of this story. He’s left at home while his parents and sister drive to Illinois to visit their uncle’s family for the weekend. Alex didn’t want to go, and after an argument with his mom, was reluctantly allowed to stay at home alone. That’s when disaster strikes.

The effects of the Yellowstone supervolcanic eruption reach Cedar Falls, Iowa, where Alex lives. First his house gets crushed and destroyed by fire. Outside, ashes begin to rain down like snow, darkening the sky and making it hard to breathe. The sound of the blast is heard for days. Alex decides he’s going to walk to Illinois to find his parents; it’s better than being alone and homeless. But the journey isn’t going to be easy at all, and it’s not just the fact that there’s a foot of ash everywhere, and water and food is scarce. People are desperate, and in desperation, survival is their only instinct. Alex meets some unsavory characters in his journey, but he also meets people who still have kindness in their hearts.

I thought this was a well written book and an interesting read. Like I’ve said, this is my first time reading a realistic apocalyptic story, and it’s incredible the things people will do to survive. The things Alex endures, witnesses and hears about during his hundred mile journey are sometimes horrific. One of my favourite quotes (and I can’t find it at the moment, darn) was when Alex says the supervolcano has taken away their food, water, their land and even family members, but people gave up their humanity on their own.
Alex, as a protagonist, is a pretty smart cookie. I mean, drinking water from the toilet tank is not something I would have thought of if I was in his situation. He’s a pretty resourceful kid, and figured out skiing over the ash is going to be much faster than trying to walk through. There’s other things as well, and you can bet all this is going into my mental list of ‘How to Survive After A Supervolcanic Eruption’. Alex has been in Tae Kwon Do as well, so he already has some fighting abilities (I used to be in Tae Kwon Do too! But I quit after I got my red belt), which he never really had a true use for until now.

Darla is another character Alex meets halfway through the novel. She’s a kick-ass, no-nonsense kind of girl, good with machinery and even more resourceful than Alex because she’s lived on a farm all her life so she’s somewhat familiar with how to kill animals for their meat and smoking the meat to make it last, for example. Alex and Darla eventually begin a romantic relationship, which I have no issues with because it felt pretty natural to me; however I don’t know if all the sex parts and whatnot really fit into the novel well. Whenever they pop up, it seems a bit sudden to me … I guess I just feel that sex and looking for condoms for survival supplies felt out of place.

The plot is filled with lots of action, violence and adrenaline-pumping scenes, but there are also scenes where not much seems to happen. For a long time, Alex is traveling alone through ashfall, and a lot of those scenes are filled with internal monologue. I suppose that’s why I felt the first half of the novel seemed a bit slower compared to the last half, when he meets Darla. Despite the intense beginning, it took me a while after before I could really get into the novel.

Overall, this is a very solid book by a debut author, and I look forward to reading more about Alex and Darla in the possible upcoming sequels. If you love YA novels, if you love apocalyptic stories, be sure to give this book a try.

My Rating: 3.5/5