Title: Ashfall
Author: Mike Mullin
Published October 11th 2011 by Tanglewood Press
Source: Library
Buy it from: Amazon
Goodreads summary:
Many visitors to Yellowstone National Park don’t realize that the boiling hot springs and spraying geysers are caused by an underlying supervolcano, so large that the caldera can only be seen by plane or satellite. And by some scientific measurements, it could be overdue for an eruption.
For Alex, being left alone for the weekend means having the freedom to play computer games and hang out with his friends without hassle from his mother. Then the Yellowstone supervolcano erupts, plunging his hometown into a nightmare of darkness, ash, and violence. Alex begins a harrowing trek to seach for his family and finds help in Darla, a travel partner he meets along the way. Together they must find the strength and skills to survive and outlast an epic disaster.
Mini review:
Full disclosure: I read this book over two months ago, as I was reading its sequel for review as part of a blog tour over at Page Turners Blog. This is what I remember of my impressions.
-Holy research, Batman. Mike Mullin obviously knows his stuff in regards to supervolcanoes. In the event of such an apocalyptic event, I think you’ll want to stick around him. He knows how thing are gonna go down.
-I remember some characters that only made the vaguest of impressions on me, which was frustrating. Before Alex decided to seek out his family, we’re with his neighbors, who I felt got focused on a little too much for characters who disappeared from the novel when Alex left. It made me think of this quote by Frank Conroy:
“The author makes a tacit deal with the reader. You hand them a backpack. You ask them to place certain things in it — to remember, to keep in mind — as they make their way up the hill. . . . If you hand them a yellow Volkswagen and they have to haul this to the top of the mountain — to the end of the story — and they find that this Volkswagen has nothing whatsoever to do with your story, you’re going to have a very irritated reader on your hands.”
-Alex’s voice and narration were realistic enough, but not a ton about the writing stood out to me. I liked the sequel, Ashen Winter, a bit better as it was more action-packed, as opposed to how Ashfall moves very slowly through Alex’s journey.
To sum up: If you’re a big post-apocalyptic or dystopian novel fan, you might enjoy this one, but if you’re growing tired of the genres, this one might not be for you.
