Readers will be drawn into Rencher’s story, invited to imagine the Book of Revelation materialized and to ponder with the...
A family struggles to survive the week after a giant asteroid crashes into the sea off the coast of New Jersey.
Four years before the story begins, a 12.7 earthquake tumbled chunks of the West Coast into the Pacific Ocean. But the resulting geological chaos is less disturbing than the sudden disappearance of a third of the world’s population. Why? It’s a mystery, but many blame UFOs. Gradually, people push it out of their minds, busy rebuilding a world turned upside down. East Coast restaurant owner Trent Hayes; Nora, his wife and a Wall Street lawyer; and their three spoiled children, Jennifer (an unemployed Penn State grad), Justin (a lazy, sneaky 16-year-old) and Rachel (a preciously sexy 15-year-old) live comfortable lives. Then on an ordinary day—Nora is at work in the city, Trent is driving back home—a two-and-a-half mile wide asteroid splashes onto the continental shelf off New Jersey. Life turns nightmarish as both parents struggle separately through a devastated urban landscape to return home. Their children wait, running out of food and fearing strangers, in what’s left of their mid-Hudson Valley McMansion. Nora and Trent each form loose—and sometimes treacherous—alliances with other refugees. Nora’s trek through a Manhattan landscape (New York City and New Jersey have been declared ground zero) takes three days (the same time it took Jonah to walk through the biblical Nineveh). Despite sporadic relief efforts from National Guard troops, chaos reigns in the United States. Rencher’s spare, simple narrative moves relentlessly in this Christian apocalyptic page-turner. He introduces spiritual matters subtly, avoiding what minor character Constance notes that she hates about the Christian church, “forcing their God on everyone” and “making me feel guilty about my choices.” However, the book suffers from a lack of simple proofreading, with errors like “gizmo’s” for “gizmos” and “what your asking” for “what you’re asking” distracting from the plot.
Readers will be drawn into Rencher’s story, invited to imagine the Book of Revelation materialized and to ponder with the characters whether they are ready to die.Pub Date: Feb. 16, 2012
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: -
Publisher: Frayer and Williams Publishing
Review Posted Online: Feb. 23, 2012
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A tasty, if not always tasteful, tale of supernatural mayhem that fans of King and Crichton alike will enjoy.
Are we not men? We are—well, ask Bigfoot, as Brooks does in this delightful yarn, following on his bestseller World War Z(2006).
A zombie apocalypse is one thing. A volcanic eruption is quite another, for, as the journalist who does a framing voice-over narration for Brooks’ latest puts it, when Mount Rainier popped its cork, “it was the psychological aspect, the hyperbole-fueled hysteria that had ended up killing the most people.” Maybe, but the sasquatches whom the volcano displaced contributed to the statistics, too, if only out of self-defense. Brooks places the epicenter of the Bigfoot war in a high-tech hideaway populated by the kind of people you might find in a Jurassic Park franchise: the schmo who doesn’t know how to do much of anything but tries anyway, the well-intentioned bleeding heart, the know-it-all intellectual who turns out to know the wrong things, the immigrant with a tough backstory and an instinct for survival. Indeed, the novel does double duty as a survival manual, packed full of good advice—for instance, try not to get wounded, for “injury turns you from a giver to a taker. Taking up our resources, our time to care for you.” Brooks presents a case for making room for Bigfoot in the world while peppering his narrative with timely social criticism about bad behavior on the human side of the conflict: The explosion of Rainier might have been better forecast had the president not slashed the budget of the U.S. Geological Survey, leading to “immediate suspension of the National Volcano Early Warning System,” and there’s always someone around looking to monetize the natural disaster and the sasquatch-y onslaught that follows. Brooks is a pro at building suspense even if it plays out in some rather spectacularly yucky episodes, one involving a short spear that takes its name from “the sucking sound of pulling it out of the dead man’s heart and lungs.” Grossness aside, it puts you right there on the scene.
A tasty, if not always tasteful, tale of supernatural mayhem that fans of King and Crichton alike will enjoy.Pub Date: June 16, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-9848-2678-7
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Del Rey/Ballantine
Review Posted Online: Feb. 9, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK TO SCREEN
The emotions run high, the conversations run deep, and the relationships ebb and flow with grace.
When tragedy strikes, a mother and daughter forge a new life.
Morgan felt obligated to marry her high school sweetheart, Chris, when she got pregnant with their daughter, Clara. But she secretly got along much better with Chris’ thoughtful best friend, Jonah, who was dating her sister, Jenny. Now her life as a stay-at-home parent has left her feeling empty but not ungrateful for what she has. Jonah and Jenny eventually broke up, but years later they had a one-night stand and Jenny got pregnant with their son, Elijah. Now Jonah is back in town, engaged to Jenny, and working at the local high school as Clara’s teacher. Clara dreams of being an actress and has a crush on Miller, who plans to go to film school, but her father doesn't approve. It doesn’t help that Miller already has a jealous girlfriend who stalks him via text from college. But Clara and Morgan’s home life changes radically when Chris and Jenny are killed in an accident, revealing long-buried secrets and forcing Morgan to reevaluate the life she chose when early motherhood forced her hand. Feeling betrayed by the adults in her life, Clara marches forward, acting both responsible and rebellious as she navigates her teenage years without her father and her aunt, while Jonah and Morgan's relationship evolves in the wake of the accident. Front-loaded with drama, the story leaves plenty of room for the mother and daughter to unpack their feelings and decide what’s next.
The emotions run high, the conversations run deep, and the relationships ebb and flow with grace.Pub Date: Dec. 10, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-5420-1642-1
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Montlake Romance
Review Posted Online: Oct. 13, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2019
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
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