Genre: Post-Apocalyptic
Description:
“Karis Hylen has been through the New York City dating wringer. After
years of failed relationships, she abandons her social life and whittles her
days down to work and spending time with her dog, Zeke. Her self-imposed exile
ends up saving her life when an untreatable virus sweeps the east coast,
killing millions.”
Author:
“Nicole Mabry spends her days at NBCUniversal as the Senior Manager of
Photography Post Production. Her nights are reserved for writing novels. At the
age of seven, she read The Boxcar Children, sparking a passion for reading and
writing early on. Nicole grew up in the Bay Area in Northern California and
went to college at UCLA for Art History. During a vacation, she fell in love
with New York City and has lived in Queens for the past seventeen years. On
weekends you can find her with a camera in hand and her dog, Jackson, by her
side. Nicole is an animal lover and horror movie junkie.”
Appraisal:
I’m not sure that it is indicative of anything, but Nicole Mabry, the
author of this book, Karis (the protagonist of the story), and I all look to
the children’s book The Boxcar Children as one of the more significant
reads of our life. While my memories of the plot details of that tale of four orphaned
siblings who end up living in an abandoned boxcar are skimpy for me more than a
half-century after my Mom read it to my siblings and I, I can’t help but compare
that book to this one. Sure, the stories are completely different genres and
you’ve got one adult who is largely on her own for much of the book as opposed
to four kids. But in both they find themselves in an unprecedented situation
and are forced to figure things out on their own. Determining how to provide
themselves with the most basic things like food, water, and shelter are a
challenge.
Of course, Past this Point has some major differences from The
Boxcar Children too. The big one is with Karis being on her own and needing
to be careful how and with whom she interacts. Can another person be trusted?
Are they safe or are they infected with the virus sweeping the Eastern US?
These kind of challenges and how a character figures things out and deals with
them are a big part of a good post-apocalyptic story and are well done in this
book. I found it to be intense, entertaining, and at times thought-provoking.
An excellent read.
Format/Typo
Issues:
No significant issues.
Rating: *****
Five Stars
Reviewed
by: BigAl
Approximate
word count: 115-120,000 words
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