Before and after reading this book, I've seen a lot of mixed reviews, calling this book inappropriate for Young Adult. First off, I want to point out that the author does not get to pick where her book is marketed to, that is up to the publisher, so do not get mad at Lauren. Second of all. though there are some mature content, it never goes into graphic details. If you're 13 and over, I'm sure you've seen worse at school. (Also if you think this book is inappropriate for YA, you haven't read many YA!)

Of course, I always encourage parents to read books first if you are unsure if your child should read them. I personally think we don't give younger people enough credit.

Now onto the review. I did like this book. I liked it quite a bit, but I could not put myself in the main character's shoes, so that might have took some of my enjoyment away. I felt like the plot was unique at the time of reading it; I had not read many books similar to that. I felt like the writing style pretty great. It flowed well. I was able to read the book fast and without any trouble.

I've noticed some authors dumb down a lot of things, especially in YA (and middle grade) I felt like there was none of that in this book. I think it is clear Lauren most likely wrote this for herself because it was a story she needed to get out of her head.

There was a character that was too young to be a wife, but in this world girls got no choice in the matter if they were of child barring age, and at 13 Cecily sadly could have children. It is hard to read about a child bride. I know that it was more normal a long time ago, and in some countries and religions, there are still child brides.

That all being said, I would not call the husband in this story a pedophile; it is just the world he finds himself in. He did seem like a decent person, despite everything. He really did seem to love his former wife and seemed like he was growing fond of some of his new wives.

I have nothing against polygamy when everyone is of a consensual age. It doesn't hurt me if you want to be in love and married to a bunch of people! The more power to you.

It was just hard to read about it in a setting like this, where the girls are forced and most at such a young age.

It wasn't BAD. It wasn't good in any different or outstanding way either. Too many of it's type crowding the shelves, and some of them are decidedly better.

There were some nice bits on the relative strengh of the realtionships betweend sister wives and wife and husband, and there was some ring of truth in the blurriness between a self preserving act, compassion and true caring.

Most lacked any meat for me, and since it was set up as a first volume and little else, it did little to satisfy me in any respect unless I choose to follow up, and I really don't intend to.

In the start of a new series, Amy Miles takes the reader to America two weeks after the world has gone to hell:

Avery has been sitting by her mother's hospital bed knowing that she is not going to wake up but she has no where else to go. The streets are crawling with the Withered ones and though they do not seem to be the brain eating zombies of the TV shows and books Avery still does not trust them and their eerie shuffling around. Avery has learned that right now the Withered are not to be feared but the gangs who now own the streets and she knows that it is only a matter or time before the hospital is taken as well. She has heard some stranger rumours about what the humans left alive are looking for, blood. Blood of those who are still alive they believe that blood will save them, and Avery is about to see first hand the lengths they will go to get it. Don't fear the Withered, Fear the Humans.

I was first attracted to this book due to the cover as it portrayed this book as a darker read and while that may be true on some instances I never really felt the suspense or thrills that I think this book should have contained. Yes there are some action scenes but they were not overly descriptive and due to the fact that Avery is a calm and collective character (most of the time) we never get a sense of urgency from her. I found the world building really lacking in this book. I'm not really sure how the Withered ones came about, i think it was first a disease and then people tried to fix it but that mutated people into zombies, but not zombies. I'm really not sure how far the mutation went or if that is just rumour, like the humans need to find fresh blood. So i guess you could say I was a bit confused.

I think my favourite part of the book is that Miles decided to focus more on the degradation of humans and what we would do to each other in this situation other than the withered ones aka zombies. I think Humans as a whole can be way more scarier than any zombie can be. I mean a zombie people feel they can just kill, they are already, technically dead, but a human can be more cold calculated and we see glimpse of this cold calculation throughout the book. Personally I wish there was more.

Even though this was a short read, I still think that Miles could have done a better job with the world building. There is a bit of a lull in the middle of the book, which I don't think was needed as we didn't really receive an additional information about the characters or the world that Miles has built. There is no question that Miles was able to entertain me and keep it that way to the end with her characters and her desire to keep the book  real as to what happens to us as humans when the world goes to shit. I look forward to see where Miles decides to take this series (at least I hope there are more books in the works).

Enjoy!!!

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