"A person can last 3 minutes without air, 3 days without water, 3 weeks without food. A community begins to die in just seconds."
Adam Daley, an average 16-year-old boy, experienced a power outage in school. Nothing out of the ordinary. Until he discovered that everything that operates using computers broke down, including most cars.
Herb Campbell, almost 70 years old, is Adam's neighbour, who has recently moved into the neighbourhood. While everyone else is panicking, only he seems to be able to think rationally, and plans ahead by getting chlorine in order to purify water. Things start getting out of hand when people start robbing and looting houses, malls, and stations. While Adam's mother, the police captain, struggles to calm the people down during an attack on a mini-mall for food, Herb reacts accordingly and is able to solve the ordeal with no violence and disagreements. As things start getting better for the community, Adam realizes that finishing his ultralight plane in the garage which he started with his father, who is absent because of his job as a pilot, might be necessary in order to scope around the area outside of their community. They are able to befriend another community nearby, Burnham, with the help of his ultralight, and everything begins to click in place until they find out that Burnham has been attacked with barely any survivors. When Adam and Herb head out to investigate, all the evidence point towards an armed rogue military group. When it becomes clear that their community will become the next victim, they start their planning.
Set in a dystopian world, Eric Walters show throughout his book the cruel reality of what would happen when everything starts breaking down. Social structure, authority, and basically everything they've lived with. Because most of us are used to living with any amount of drinking water and electricity as we please, we are unable to function properly without what we consider our basic 'necessities'. Through the story, the author portrays the true nature of humans, showing our natural greed and desires. Something that the author has done well in is keeping the tension throughout the story. The truth of Herb's character is not revealed until further into the story, as well as never mentioning where the root of this situation came from.
The most interesting character throughout the story in my opinion is Herb, because as previously stated, he remains a mystery. Adam is the most developed character through the book, because although he is portrayed as slightly innocent in the beginning, he begins to learn things about surviving and then learns to analyze people.
One thing I didn't like about the story was the ending. Even though I'm now aware that the book is first of the series, the story was too abruptly ended without even a cliffhanger to make the readers look forward to the next book. This is probably the reason why I didn't bother finishing the series. Although the story was interesting at first, the excitement just died out near the end.
The most interesting character throughout the story in my opinion is Herb, because as previously stated, he remains a mystery. Adam is the most developed character through the book, because although he is portrayed as slightly innocent in the beginning, he begins to learn things about surviving and then learns to analyze people.
One thing I didn't like about the story was the ending. Even though I'm now aware that the book is first of the series, the story was too abruptly ended without even a cliffhanger to make the readers look forward to the next book. This is probably the reason why I didn't bother finishing the series. Although the story was interesting at first, the excitement just died out near the end.
Accelerated Reader Book Level: --