He prepared their family for every natural disaster known
to man-except for the one that struck. When Nicole Reed's father forces her family to move to a
remote area of the Sierra Foothills, one without any modern conveniences, it's
too much too handle for her mother, who abandons them in the middle of the
night. Heading out to track her down, Nicole's father leaves her in charge of
taking care of the house and her younger sister, Izzy. For a while, Nicole is
doing just fine running things on her own. But then the food begins to run out,
the pipes crack, and forest fires start slowly inching their way closer every
day. Wolf, a handsome boy from the neighboring community, offers to help her
when she needs it most, but when she starts to develop feelings for him,
feelings she knows she will never be allowed to act on once her father returns,
she must make a decision. With her family falling apart, will she choose to
continue preparing for tomorrow's disasters, or will she take a chance and
really start living for today?
I wanted to like
this book a lot more, but I was a bit disappointed because it wasn't quite what
I expected. First of all, I expected this book to focus more on the survivalist
things that Nicole's dad had been teaching her since birth. What I got was a book
about two girls waiting desperately for their parents to actually come home.
Nicole and her sister were in a cabin in the middle of nowhere with no running
water and no phone, but they did have (some) money and plenty of food. So while
they had awful, awful parents, it wasn't like they had to go into survival mode
because of an apocalypse or whatever.
Nicole and
Izzy's mom takes off in the middle of the night, with NO word to anyone about
where she was going, not even her children. This woman's husband dragged her to
a cabin in the middle of nowhere, she knows he is crazy and yet, she doesn't
even THINK of bringing her children along or even telling them goodbye. A
couple of days later, her dad makes the incredibly mature and rational decision
(insert sarcastic tone here) to go find her and leave the girls alone. These
parents should not have had children. Ever. Their mom does write them a letter later in the story to say she wasn't coming back, but man, there was no emotion in that letter. I have written more emotional letters to my bank.
Nicole was easy
to like, maybe because I understood her. She went along with everything her dad
said, even when she knew he was crazy, because she didn't want to disappoint
him. I get that. Izzy, on the other hand, was a brat and I hated her. I tried
so hard to put myself in the shoes of a fourteen year old girl who was in a
cabin with no cell phone and no running water and I would probably be pretty
miserable too. But Izzy was a brat and I hated everything she said and did. All
she did was lay around and whine about everything and she never, ever helped
her sister. Nicole was working like crazy to fix things around the house and
Izzy couldn't even be bothered to cook dinner or do her own laundry.
Nicole and Izzy
meet Wolf and some other kids from a nearby spiritual commune or whatever. I
could have done without all the POV's honestly. I was more interested in what
was happening with Nicole and Izzy, but I was given POV's from Wolf and Laurel
(another girl in the commune). I didn't mind Wolf's so much because he was an
interesting character. But why were we given insight into Laurel's POV? Other
than living at the commune with Wolf and having one or two interactions with
Nicole and Izzy, she had nothing to do with anybody. And there was some history
with Wolf and his mom and some scenes between them that didn't really need to
be there either. Why did I care? The ending was also a big nothing. I won't
give anything away, but I expected more to come from their parents abandoning
them. I was thinking, "What was the point of any of this?"
The good news
(and one of the only things I liked) is that Izzy became less of a brat by the
end of the book. Stuff happened that I won't get into because of spoilers and
whatever, but it seemed to mellow her out. It also brought her and her sister
together. By the end of the book, Izzy and Nicole resembled actual sisters and
not just two bickering teenagers who just happened to live together.
Buy/Borrow/Skip: Skip this one.
Ugh Izzy would bother me! I have heard that Laurel's POV wasn't needed. I thought this one sounded so good but maybe not now. Great review!
ReplyDeleteThanks Grace! Yeah, it was just an okay book. Some parts were better than others. I think skipping it is a good call.
DeleteI was initially intrigued, but I think those things would annoy me too. Great honest review!
ReplyDeleteThanks Chrissi!
DeleteTwinsies as always! Like,I love how the same stuff bugged us too! I felt the same way about the end. I didn't go into any detail either of course, but what was that!? Or I guess, what WASN'T that!? I... don't understand. Laurel was so useless I don't even know where to start. I feel like maybe the book was short a few pages so they slapped in a few chapters from her? I seriously can't think of any other reason. And THOSE PARENTS. They;d have been better off being raised by Wolf (get it? A pun!) because what WAS that? "Oh kids, your dad's a damn psychopath, so I'm gonna take off, good luck!" I guess we shouldn't even have expected more from Izzy because look at the asshats who "raised" her. I kind of feel like I was being too generous with 2 stars, honestly. The more I think about it, the more ranty I get! Great review, but sorry we read this book ;)
ReplyDeleteShannon, I know, it's so crazy how alike we are when it comes to books, right?? Crazy awesome. I was about to give this one a three star rating on Goodreads because there were a few parts I liked. But as I was writing the review, I realized that would be way too generous. You are probably right that a one star rating may have been more accurate. I ended up giving it two stars as well. There were just so many parts of it that made me mad!
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