Book Review: Ashes by Ilsa J. Bick

*This review might contain spoilers*

It could happen tomorrow…
An electromagnetic pulse flashes across the sky, destroying every electronic device, wiping out every computerised system, and killing billions.

Alex hiked into the woods to say good bye to her dead parents and her personal demons. Now desperate to find out what happened after the pulse crushes her to the ground, Alex meets up with Tom–a young solder–and Ellie, a girl whose grandfather was killed by the EMP.

For this improvised family and others who are spared, it's now a question of who can be trusted and who is no longer human.

Awhile ago I was browsing the shelves of QBD (an amazing bookshop), looking for more paranormal/sci-fi/romance books for me to give a home to. After picking up maybe ten books, I had to narrow it down to three - story of my life. I read the blurb of Ashes, as well as a random page inside and instantly fell in love because it had everything I wanted in a good book; weird action, thick plots, friendship, a clever/kick-ass heroin. However (please don't hate me), the "as good as The Hunger Games" sticker almost made me turn away. 

Anyway, I am extremely glad that I ended up buying Ashes because it's one of the most well-written books I've ever picked up. It's about a girl named Alex, with pretty red hair, dead parents and a brain tumour. Cheerful, no? She knows that no matter what the doctors say, the cancer is terminal and as a seventeen year old girl, she's not going to let dying ruin her life. As a last-ditch effort to salvage her life and have one more go at doing something she loves, she goes on a hiking/camping trip.

Something goes very wrong on this trip, like apocalyptic-dystopian-endoftheworld kind of wrong. The rest of the book is about Alex discovering herself (and maybe some weird powers), and working out how to live in a post-apocalyptic world. I'll say this now, things get very screwed up.

As awesome as this all sounds, the book starts off slow. Although there is excellent character development and you can already understand that there's a lot of depth to the book, it's still boring. This is a letdown, especially since I had to continuously pick the book up and put it down again because I couldn't really get into it. But you know when authors go way over the top and get really descriptive when there's almost no point? That happens a lot, although it's not too annoying it stilled bugged me. I hate saying bad things about books, so I'm glad that these are virtually the only bad things I have to say about Ashes. There will be some low points throughout the book where you'll have to take a break and wait until you really do want to read it, though.

Don't worry, once you hit around the chapter twenty mark, you won't just want to read this book.

You'll need to read this book. 

Seeing as, for a third or so of the book, it's just Alex and Ellie, it's refreshing to see some unfamiliar faces (cough Tom cough). When I first started reading the book, I would have said it was a 4/10, now it's more of a 8/10 or something I don't even know. Tom was in the army, and without him both girls would have been dead halfway through the book. One thing that bugs me is the fact that he's in the army, he's got all these skills. Of course he's a genius, of course he's got wilderness skills. That is a little predictable, but I'm willing to forgive because I really do ship Tom & Alex.

The book is separated into five parts, my personal favourite being part four: Rule. Because the electromagnetic pulse and all that jazz screwed up all communications and turned people into zombies (I shit you not), there's a small town called Rule that came together to stay safe. Kind of. I mean, at the very end of Ashes you find out just how horrible those townspeople are. One person in that town is Chris, but he's no Tom. I absolutely hated Chris, it's nothing personal, but the way he and Alex kind of got together was just wrong. I found Tom's and Alex's relationship much more believable and not so forced.

Forced relationships, boringness, and the possible deaths of Tom and a lovely little girl aside, Ashes is a great read and I highly recommend it. I'm warning you now, quite a bit of the book is boring, and chapters 33 through 36 will make you want to cry. It's completely worth it! Humour and romance aren't the main focuses of the book, and I really appreciate that because it's a nice reprieve from virtually every other damn book out there. All in all, a lovely book kind of similar to The Hunger Games but with more flesh eating and less games.

I don't know how to rate this book because I loved it and it was great and all, but a lot of it was pretty dull. I'm hoping that the next book will be a lot more fast paced as Ashes was kind of setting the tone for everything, and introducing the world Alex and the gang lives in. Can't wait to read the rest of the trilogy, I'll do reviews of those too!