BOOK REVIEW: Alive (The Generations Trilogy #1) by Scott Sigler

This is a book review for Alive (TheGenerations Trilogy #1) by Scott Sigler. I received this ARC from NetGalley in exchange for my honest review. The scheduled publication date is July 14, 2015.

A teenage girl awakens to find herself trapped in a coffin. She has no idea who she is, where she is, or how she got there. Fighting her way free brings little relief—she discovers only a room lined with caskets and a handful of equally mystified survivors. Beyond their room lies a corridor filled with bones and dust, but no people . . . and no answers. She knows only one thing about herself—her name, M. Savage, which was engraved on the foot of her coffin—yet she finds herself in charge. She is not the biggest among them, or the boldest, but for some reason the others trust her. Now, if they’re to have any chance, she must get them to trust one another.

I was not prepared to love this book. For some reason, I thought it would be a copycat of Maze Runner. Maybe it was because of a teenager having no memory of who she is? But there was enough in the premise to stand out. I was wary of requesting it from NetGalley, but my curiosity won out. Man, I am so glad it did. This book was os incredibly fast paced and filled with action and was seriously unputdownable (yes, that is a word, don't question me on that). 

The beginnings of this book reminded me a bit of Lord of the Flies. There were all these kids who woke up thinking they were celebrating their twelfth birthday. They have the minds of twelve year olds, but have the bodies of people much older. When they realize there are no Grownups around, they must decide who is the leader and who gets to make the decisions. Em (called that because of the letter M on her coffin) steps up, as do a few other survivors. In the end, Em is the one who takes control, mainly because of how methodical she is. I am not sure if that is the best word to describe her, but she is so calm even when others are afraid or even when she is unsure about the decisions she is making. She thinks through her decisions and sticks by them. I am sure the decision and fighting about who gets to be a leader can seem repetitive, but these are kids. I can kind of imagine kids with no adults around fighting about who gets to be in charge. I am wary to reveal too much about the plot of this book because there are several reveals that are quite shocking. Just let me say that my heart was pounding during the entire book. 

One thing that I did not care for was Em's obsession with O'Malley when she first saw him. She sees so much carnage around her, but then she sees him in his coffin and immediately starts thinking about how beautiful she is. Then there is kind of a love triangle later in the book when she starts feeling attracted to Bishop, someone she hated at first. She did think at one point that her attitude changed depending on which guy she was talking to. Yeah, no kidding. There wasn't any real romance though with any of them and I think that is a good thing. There was just talk about how attractive everyone is. That is something else I could have done without . . . endless talk about how beautiful everyone was.

Buy/Borrow/Skip: Yes, please buy this book! If you love science fiction, dystopian type thrillers you will love this one. It is truly unique.