It’s been over six
months since the eruption of the Yellowstone supervolcano. Alex and
Darla have been staying with Alex’s relatives, trying to cope with the
new reality of the primitive world so vividly portrayed in Ashfall,
the first book in this series. It’s also been six months of waiting for
Alex’s parents to return from Iowa. Alex and Darla decide they can wait
no longer and must retrace their journey into Iowa to find and bring
back Alex’s parents to the tenuous safety of Illinois. But the landscape
they cross is even more perilous than before, with life-and-death
battles for food and power between the remaining communities. When the
unthinkable happens, Alex must find new reserves of strength and
determination to survive.
Description taken from Goodreads
My Review
If
you are familiar with the term “sophomore slump” then you know that it means
that the second item in a series fails to live up to the first, whether or not
it is a book or an album or a movie. And
if you aren’t familiar, well I just told you, so now you know.
Ashen
Winter does not fall into this category. I thought that it was leagues better then Ashfall and it really made me want to
continue with the series.
Ashen
Winter starts right off the bat into the story. There is little to no back-story about what
happened in the previous novel, which I loved.
I didn’t have to skim a few paragraphs reading what I already knew
happened wanting to get to the good stuff.
The
characters are ten times better. We meet
the sibling duo, Alyssa and Ben, who brought an immense amount of emotion to
the story. Ben has Autism (probably
closer to Aspergers) and he has a great knowledge of all things military. He is the brains of most of the operations
throughout the majority of this book. He was
definitely my favorite character so far in this series. (A close second is Rita Mae, the Librarian).
Alyssa,
Bens’ ‘Sister Unit’, reminded me a lot of Annie from the show "Copper". If you watch "Copper" than you probably know
what I’m talking about. Both characters
had to grow up way too fast, went through a disturbing ordeal and often still live in the horrifying past when they feel
like they need to keep people close.
Alex
and Darla are the same Alex and Darla.
They are a tad stronger, physically and especially when they are
together. Their drive to protect one
another is commendable and I can finally start to believe them as a couple.
Yes,
shocking, I know. Considering how much I
hated their romance in the first book.
The
story itself is also a lot better than Ashfall.
Things actually happen throughout the book and we aren’t just reading
about them traveling along the road wondering when and if they are going to
starve or freeze to death. I just can’t get over the action;
there is so much of it. Definitely not
too much though, I found myself turning the pages as fast as I could to get to
the next part.
And
the ending left me wondering what the next book will be about. Is it all going to be about whether or not
the winter will last? What about Black
Lake? Are they going to try and
overthrow that government? There are
just so many directions Mr. Mullin can take the third book and I really can’t
wait to read it.
There
were still some things that didn’t sit right with me, but I can’t mention those
because they are major spoilers. I’ll
just say that there are some arguments between a couple of the characters that annoyed me. There was an alliance made that I wish was a
little more fleshed out. And something
BIG happens at the end that I really did not enjoy. But other than those things, I don’t really
have any complaints. Was it THE
book. Sadly, no. But it was really close. So, YAY for that, right?
4 out of 5 hearts
You
can find my review of the first book in the series, Ashfall, right here.
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