Sunday, June 24, 2018

Book Review: Plague Land: Reborn

Plague Land: Reborn by Alex Scarrow
Courtesy of netgalley.com
Publication date: September 4, 2018

Like Remade #1 (Plague Land), Plague Land: Reborn (#2) has some of the most descriptive writing in YA novels. And it's not description as filler; the descriptions become part of the characters, make them horrific and visceral, help them achieve creepy-crawliness.  For those who didn't read #1 yet, it probably could read as a stand-alone and still be understood. HOWEVER, (spoiler alert) it has an unfinished, i.e., cliff-hanger ending.

#2 is more horror-bound than #1 was, and it crosses the line from sci-fi into horror. Scarrow does a good job of hiding who the bad guys and the good guys are, until he doesn't. It's a little easier in #2 than in #1 to figure out who - or what - has morphed into something ominous (spoiler alert) especially when a child or children are found without any adults two years after the first outbreak; Scarrow asked the readers to suspend disbelief that the uninfected characters would accept such a find, regardless of how compassionate they've been.

If you don't take the premise too seriously, you'll enjoy part #2.  Go with the flow, be naive, suspend disbelief, and you'll be rewarded with a fun-filled horror ride. Think too hard, and you'll miss the joy of Scarrow's creepy tale.

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