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Review: The other life by Susanne Winnacker

The other life by Susanne Winnacker
Published by Usborne


3 years, 1 month, 1 week and 6 days since I’d seen daylight. One-fifth of my life. 98,409,602 seconds since the heavy, steel door had fallen shut and sealed us off from the world

Sherry has lived with her family in a sealed bunker since things went wrong up above. But when they run out of food, Sherry and her dad must venture outside. There they find a world of devastation, desolation...and the Weepers: savage, mutant killers.

When Sherry's dad is snatched, she joins forces with gorgeous but troubled Joshua - an Avenger, determined to destroy the Weepers.

But can Sherry keep her family and Joshua safe, when his desire for vengeance threatens them all?


***
The Other life is set in the near future. After an outbreak of Rabies people were made to live in underground bunkers to keep them safe on advisement from the military. That was over three years ago. Sherry and her family have since run out of food and have decided to risk leaving their shelter for the first time in order to survive. They have no idea what might be waiting for them when they do.

After Sherry an her family leave the safety of their shelter the story really starts to kick out. The pace is fast throughout and often the passages are quite tense especially when the weepers are involved. From the moment Sherry's dad is grabbed you never quite know what is going to happen. For me the thing I found most disturbing was the fact that you didn't really know what the deal was with the weepers and they were really a bit too horrible for words.

My favourite bit about this book was how the scenes of today were broken up with small flashbacks to Sherry's normal life and it really highlighted how crazy her life had gotten since leaving the shelter.

For me I found the storyline a little bit weak in that I didn't really feel drawn to any of the characters which meant I wasn't all that fussed if they got weepered and I found the way Sherry is written to be a little but younger and innocent than I would have expected.

The twist at the end is a huge one. The ideas behind it are really interesting and although I can't imagine exactly where the author will take the story next I can see the over arching idea could be huge.

Comments

Ailsa said…
This sounds pretty good. I don't really go for post-apocolypse type books very often, but this one sounds like something I'd enjoy.

~Ailsa
Fab review Kirsty, I loved The Other Life and completley agree about the ending. I'm intrigued to see where it will go next too :)