Ashfall by Mike Mullin

Title: Ashfall

Author: Mike Mullin
Publisher: Tanglewood Press IN
Acquired: Received free for an honest review
Age Group: Young Adult

Grade: 94% or A
Buy It: Amazon

Under the bubbling hot springs and geysers of Yellowstone National Park is a supervolcano. Most people don't know it's there. The caldera is so large that it can only be seen from a plane or satellite. It just could be overdue for an eruption, which would change the landscape and climate of our planet.

Ashfall is the story of Alex, a teenage boy left alone for the weekend while his parents visit relatives. When the Yellowstone supervolcano erupts unexpectedly, Alex is determined to reach his parents. He must travel over a hundred miles in a landscape transformed by a foot of ash and the destruction of every modern convenience that he has ever known, and through a new world in which disaster has brought out both the best and worst in people desperate for food, water, and warmth.

My Thoughts::
In true Amanda fashion, once I saw this book on netgalley I HAD to request it. Just the idea of it all is something that I love. That makes me sound a bit...cruel..Anyways, you all know that my favorite books are dystopian, but my very close second is apocalyptic/natural disaster, and that's what this book was about. It seems that authors are flocking to the dystopian genre, so I'm glad that the disaster books aren't being forgotten.

The book is being told in past tense, which tells me that he'll live through all of the events that he talks about, but it's very easy to forget that when you're reading, which I did. The situation seemed so real and plausible, you know, if it did happen. I'd like to think my small town would react nicely and work together, but in reality they would probably become scared and greedy out of preservation for themselves and their families, just like most places in the book were.

As usual with these kinds of books, I loved the characters. Alex was so sweet and clever...but almost too clever. He found a solution to everything and came up with ideas that I wouldn't even begin to think of. The karate background really came in handy. I give the author props for putting that in there. It would have been way too hard to believe Alex could get out of those situations without them, or not come across those situations in the first place. Between all of these dangerous areas and people and struggles, we get to meet some really great people. It really touched my heart to see how some people were willing to help Alex. I hope that I would be one of those people.

Overall I found Ashfall to be a very gripping read with an intriguing setting and characters, even if they sometimes got a bit too lucky. I would recommend this book to fans of disaster survival novels.