REVIEW: Ashfall, by Mike Mullin (4.5*)

(Tanglewood, 2011)

"The ash looked almost white in the dim light, giving us a ghostly aspect.  Maybe we were ghosts of a sort, spirits from the world that had died when the volcano erupted.  Now we haunted a changed land.  Would there be any place for us in this new, post-volcanic world?"

I don't know why I'm struggling to write reviews at the moment - except that I'm reading like a maniac instead! - but I'm determined to get a few done this week even if they're a bit rubbish.  I want to be a little more up to date by the time we go on holiday at the start of October, especially given how much reading I'm hoping to do while I'm there.  I'll be even further behind if I don't get a crack on! 

So, Ashfall.  I can't remember where I first heard about it, but it immediately grabbed my interest and I ordered a copy the same day.  It's basically an environmental-apocalypse-type dystopian novel, for older YA readers, hypothesising about what would happen if the supervolcano squatting under Yellowstone actually erupted.  Within the first few pages Alex, a teenager left alone in Cedar Falls while his parents and sister head off to visit his uncle a couple of hours' drive away, has seen his house destroyed by a falling chunk of burning debris.  Escaping to the safety of his neighbours' house, the relentless deafening booming of the eruption, happening 900 miles away, is the next thing to hit, continuing for several days.  When it finally stops, all that's left is darkness, and rumbling thunder, and the ashfall, drifting grey...

Once this set-up is complete, the survival story takes over.  It actually reminded me a tiny bit of The Hunger Games in that respect, as every possible extreme of human behaviour is brought to the surface by the ongoing catastrophe.  Leaving his neighbourhood behind, Alex sets out for Warren, where he hopes he'll find his family safe at his uncle's farm.  En route he meets Darla, an earthy farm girl with some of the practical knowledge he'll need to stay alive, and she falls in with him on his journey.  On the way they have to balance their own needs - defending themselves and their property, and finding food where they can - with retaining their humanity, helping people they meet on the road and aiding community survival efforts as they pass through.

I was quite impressed by how thoroughly Mullin had thought everything through, working in every imaginable consequence of an environmental disaster in a scarily realistic way.  He covers the ongoing need for food and shelter, the lack of water and power, the scarcity of available medical help, and the collapse of authority.  He explores the possibilities for corruption and panic, and the way that while most people will instinctively come together and work hard to keep life going, others will allow their most brutal impulses to come to the fore and exploit the vulnerability of others, out of need or just for kicks.  It's amazing how quickly a civilisation can fall apart once people realise the fragility of the social boundaries we all live by.

Overall I was genuinely impressed by this novel, particularly given the rather cheap feel of the cover design and the book itself, which did ring alarm bells a bit when I first bought it!  I was completely gripped by the end of the first chapter, and remained hooked through every twist and turn, every tentative encounter and dangerous confrontation, that Alex (and later, Darla) encountered on the road to Warren.  There were some truly horrific moments (hence the Hunger Games comparison), including one early on which I felt might have been a bit TOO gratuitous - I have a strong stomach these days but this particular incident made me feel a bit queasy - and if you can't read any scenes of animals being harmed then you might want to skip this one.  After all, the aim is survival, and food is food...  Blood and gore aside, however, I thought it was superbly written and emotionally astute (yes, I cried at least once), and I can't wait to read the next installment of Alex and Darla's adventures in the second book, Ashen Winter.

Bonus points: for the extras at the back.  Mullin includes a few pages of information about the Yellowstone supervolcano - and others like it - along with some suggested further reading, which I've duly scribbled down for later.  He also has an amusing 'about the author' page, in which he mentions that he's a black belt in Songahm Taekwondo (something he shares with his young protagonist, who naturally finds it rather helpful on his journey!) and lists some of his crappiest jobs to date, wryly noting that "he's really hoping this writing thing works out."  I hope so too...


Source:  I preordered this book from Amazon UK... then didn't read it.  Naturally.

REVIEW: On the Island, by Tracey Garvis Graves (4.5*)

(Penguin, 2012)

This was the perfect holiday read while we were away soaking up some sunshine.  I actually thought On the Island was a young adult book when I ordered it, but it definitely isn't!  Which was probably a good thing, as a romantic beach read without a bit of spiciness would be... well, disappointing.  So, Anna is a thirty year-old teacher accompanying her new student, seventeen year-old T.J., to his parents' holiday house in the Maldives for some summer tutoring.  T.J. is in remission from cancer, and not all that happy about spending his vacation with his nose in a pile of schoolbooks - no matter how attractive his new teacher might be...  As it happens, their summer is going to be far from mundane, as their plane crashes between Malé and their final destination, leaving them marooned on one of the many uninhabited islands dotted across the vast sweep of the Maldives.

About two thirds of the novel consists of the trials and tribulations of desert island life for T.J. and Anna, and I was thoroughly absorbed in their daily experiences.  It's the kind of scenario that is familiar enough for the reader to create some very vivid mental imagery along the way, but also has plenty of scope for innovation on the author's part - and Graves definitely kept me hooked.  I thought she provided a good balance between the pair's fight for survival and the negative aspects of island life (for example, when they are forced to drink stagnant water and suffer the consequences) and the more idyllic picture-postcard moments (like their afternoons sitting by the fire roasting freshly caught fish). 

Watching these all-modern people learning to survive was a fascinating ride, and in the way a good book should, made me really start to reflect on how I would have coped in their shoes.  It emphasised the huge importance of company and social interaction; it was clear that on the island, having another person to look out for them, to help them, even just to talk to, made all the difference - and when one of them was in peril it was genuinely heart-wrenching watching the other struggle with what the implications could be if they were left alone.  I cried when Tom Hanks lost his football 'friend' in Castaway for the same reason - because we all have a kind of deep primal fear of that kind of loneliness. 

This intense microcosm and enforced proximity neatly paved the way for the romantic element of the book.  Some readers might wonder about the appropriateness of a relationship between a student and a teacher, but actually, in this unprecedented situation it's hard to imagine how a bond WOULDN'T form between T.J. and Anna.  As the weeks turns to months and then to years, their boundaries inevitably start to crumble, they get closer with every shared difficulty and joy, and as T.J. becomes a grown man it might be considered odd if their relationship didn't become more complicated at some point.  T.J. is never an immature character anyway; even at the beginning he is a realistic teenage boy, with anger and a raging sex drive, but this is tempered by the maturity he has acquired through his illness, and the necessity of being a man on the island.  I was definitely rooting for them, as mutual tenderness and respect, growing love and a unique shared experience cemented them together into an inseparable couple.

What I deeply appreciated about this book was the fact that Graves doesn't resort to a cliched 'And then a plane flew over and we waved and got picked up' way of ending her characters' island stay.  Instead she cleverly ties it in with real-life events and orchestrates a far more gritty and interesting escape.  The last part of the book follows Anna and T.J. back to 'real life' - something usually missing from stories like this - and explores how they adjust to being back in America with their families around them, modern conveniences at every turn, and the press desperate to hear their story and dissect the propriety of their relationship.  This section wasn't quite as gripping or immersive, but it rounded off the novel in a far more satisfying and realistic way than if it had simply ended at the moment they got off the island.

I only really had a couple of little niggles while I was reading.  One was that the dialogue was slightly clunky at times, particularly because of the frequent overuse of names.  Anna doesn't do this so much, but I noticed that T.J. frequently uses her name in conversation.  It doesn't really sound right, particularly given that they are the only two people on the island!  My other tiny gripe was with the occasional over-idyllic moments, like the dolphins that come to play in the lagoon and befriend T.J. and Anna.  Not that this is completely out of the question, of course - and the dolphins do have an important moment of their own later on - but it did smack a bit of a child's fantasy desert island at times!

Other than that, however, I found this to be a stellar bit of storytelling and a great read for a dose of holiday escapism.  I was genuinely caught up in T.J. and Anna's fight for survival and their budding romance, and their isolation meant that every moment of happiness, sadness or fear cut that much more deeply, both for them and for the reader.  It was quite an emotional ride!  Like a movie, I wanted these warm and relatable characters to get their break and live happily ever after.  I teared up a few times, and smiled along with them in others.  This will definitely be a keeper for me - in fact, reading it outside on a hot sunny day might have to become a new summer tradition!

Source: I bought this book from Amazon UK