17-year-old Icie’s parents worked for the government, and had advance knowledge of a terrorist threat to unleash a deadly virus on the world. They make plans to send Icie to a nuclear waste bunker in Vegas so she can survive. Unfortunately her parents are arrested, so Icie is left on her own.

Read the rest of the review on my blog. Be sure to follow my blog to get the full reviews in your inbox!: http://shouldireaditornot.wordpress.com/2013/08/21/half-lives-sara-grant/ ( )

This book is about a dystopian world, it's interesting society, and some scientific reasoning. 4Q3P The cover art is okay and I'd recommend this to high school students and adults. I chose to read this book because the concept of two stories intertwining sounded cool, plus the pre- and post-apocalyptic parts seemed interesting. MaxC

Where to start with HALF LIVES by Sara Grant. I can honestly tell you I had very little idea what to expect from this book, but I was hopeful, and it surpassed any expectation I could, or did, have. I was stunned and crying by the end of the book, and amazed at how Sara Grant managed to blend together two completely separate yet intricately linked story lines.

Icie narrates a good half of the book, telling her story of how she is given cash and supplies and told by her parents to find a mountain outside Las Vegas where an abandoned toxic waste bunker that was never used will hopefully keep her safe from an imminent viral attack. On the way, she encounters a cheerleader, Marissa; a twelve-year-old wanna be rockstar, Tate; and mysterious Chaske. Together in the bunker, with no idea how the outside world is faring from the attack, Icie and the others try to survive. Icie is so much stronger than she thinks. She goes through crazy heartache and horror while trying to keep herself and the others alive, and wait for her Mum and Dad to come find her as they said they would. And while she may be terrified and has no clue what she’s doing, she keeps it together and survives as best she can.

The other half of the book is narrated generations in the future, primarily by Beckett, the teenage leader of a society that lives on the mountain that Icie fled to, but also by a few other characters who help flesh out the action and Beckett’s story. Surviving on the mountain, Beckett’s people fear the terrorists of the outside world, the broken city they call Vega just on the horizon both helping them survive and a source of worry. Beckett is the direct link to their god, the Great I AM, who once walked the mountain and gave the society their Just Sayings, their Facebooks and the hope of one day that Mumanda will come to save them all. The chapters are interspersed with each other and I was always so excited to see something that Icie and the others did become the direct influence of the language and culture of Beckett’s society. By the end of the book I was a mess of tears at all the pain Icie, Beckett, Marissa, Tate and everyone went through, but also because of revelations that Beckett has that nearly broke my heart, and the hope Icie still held. I am just in awe of how the two story lines blended together, and how much I came to care about these characters.

HALF LIVES by Sara Grant is a book about one girl’s journey to save herself in the face of impending disaster, and how choices she makes affect the lives of hundreds throughout the coming generations. It’s about finding strength in yourself to continue on, about making the hard decisions but also the right decisions, about confronting your fears and believing in your faith (whatever it may be). It’s about love, and sacrifice, about realizing what matters in the long run and discovering yourself through hardship. HALF LIVES is also about the threats we face every day through fear, weapons, secrets and lies. It’s about change and growth and the human need to survive and live. All tinged with an innate humour of how culture and language can change and reflect a caricature of words, phrases and things that what we have today in our society. Guys, I want nothing more than to dive right back in to HALF LIVES and live it again. I love this book like crazy, and I hope you do too. ( )

Review courtesy of Dark Faerie Tales.

Quick & Dirty: This was a post apocalyptic story set in present day and the future, that felt all too real. Unfortunately, I found it really hard to connect with any of the characters and I had a hard time finishing it.

Opening Sentence: If you’d asked me that day whether I could lie, cheat, steal, and kill, I would have said ab-so-lutely not.

The Review:

Icie is your average 17 year old girl. She hangs out with her best friend and the worst thing to happen to her is that her boyfriend just broke up with her through a text message. Then one day her parents give her $10,000 and put her on a plane for Las Vegas. They tell her she has to go to a nuclear waste bunker in a mountain that was never finished. Her parents work for the government and they got wind that there is going to be a terrible terrorist attack where a virus is going to be released, and there is no way to stop it. She picks up some new friends on her journey to the mountain, but their trek is not easy. With the virus spreading and people going crazy they have to fight to survive. Once they make it to the bunker they have to stay there for months with no news about what happened outside. They have no way of knowing if they are safe or if they will survive long enough to see what has become of the world outside.

In the future Beckett is the leader of his small village of people. They have lived on the mountain ever since the terrorist attack happened 18 years ago. No one ever leaves the mountain and they worship The Great I Am, who has protected them from any harm as long as they don’t leave. Beckett has always followed the rules but one day he meets a mysterious girl that isn’t from his mountain. The more he learns about her, the more he starts to question all the things he has been taught since he was a child. Is it really as dangerous out in the world as he as always believed, or has his whole life been a lie.

First you meet Icie and I felt that she was very superficial. I understand that in the setting she needs to be ruthless to survive but I felt that her lack of compassion made her hard to connect with. She has many flaws and she owns up to her flaws which I usually like, but it just didn’t work for me in this story. Towards the end she gets a little better but it just came too late for me to really like her. I also felt that during her parts of the story it was really depressing and sad. I don’t mind if a book is heartbreaking but it didn’t pull at my heart strings like I wanted it to.

In the future part of the book the point of view switches between a bunch of different people. The main one is Beckett and he is the leader of his small clan of people. I didn’t mind Beckett, but there was really nothing that stuck out about him that was really memorable. I felt that way about all of the future characters, there wasn’t a single one that I really could connect with. I felt that when you were in Beckett’s world the story really dragged and I got bored with the story pretty quickly.

Overall, this was just an ok read for me. The plot did have some interesting twists but I had a really hard time getting into the story. I had to force myself to keep reading so I could finish the book which is never a good thing. I didn’t connect with any of the characters and I found the book to be really depressing. With this kind of book you need to really connect on an emotional level and I just didn’t get that. Honestly, this is really not my type of book, it was too serious and sad for me. Now that being said, I do think that there will be other people who actually really enjoy this book. If you like post apocalyptic and you don’t mind it being sad or a little slow you might really enjoy it. So obviously this book just wasn’t for me, but if the synopsis interests you give it a try.

Notable Scene:

She looked around as if they might have cameras in the toilet. “No, the most recent intel is about a bioterrorist attack.”

“A bio-what?”

“A fast-spreading and deadly virus. The initial projections are staggering. We need to get out of D.C.”

Then it hit me. I mean really hit me. I was falling, drowning, and being electrocuted all at once. My mind flashed to every apocalyptic movie I’d ever seen—world wars, alien attacks, explosions, floods, tsunamis, bombs, plagues. My knees gave out and I plopped down on the toilet.

“Do you remember where your dad and I met?” Mum asked.

I nodded, confused about her sudden stroll down memory lane. They were on some committee that had to do with strategic planning—Mum’s expertise—and nuclear waste—my dad’s. It had some whacked name like

Preventing Inadvertent Intrusion into blah, blah, bleugh. I always thought it sounded like the slogan for a new contraceptive device. “You met on that mountain outside Las Vegas.”

“That’s right,” she said. “We’re going there.”

FTC Advisory: Little Brown Books for Young Readers/Hachette Book Group provided me with a copy of Half Lives. No goody bags, sponsorships, “material connections,” or bribes were exchanged for my review. ( )