Ashfall by, Mike Mullin

Ashfall by, Mike Mullin

Alex lives in Cedar Rapids Iowa his parents have left him home alone for the weekend but it’s not the weekend he is hoping it will be when something crashes into his house and burns it to the ground you’d think that would be the worst of it but it is only the beginning. A Supervolcano in Yellowstone has gone off and changed the world as we know it; Alex sets off to find his family in a trek of survival, starvation and terror. Along the way Alex’s will is tested he does find some nice people that help him along the way but he also runs into people who would do him harm. He ends up at the farmhouse of Darla and her mother but tragedy strikes there too so he and Darla set off cross country to find his family.

The vivid descriptions of our world after the volcano the ash fall, the blocking out of the sun, the noise, the snow, and just trying to survive. This book doesn’t show our government in a very good light but honestly I could see it happening. Alex is a strong willed boy but Darla is strong and being a farm girl knows things about survival that city boy Alex never could. They make a great pair and I don’t think either one could have survived without the other. It was refreshing to have a male lead character yes there is a female but she is later in the book and compliments our male lead very well.

This book was scary in the way that this could really happen and since I live only a few states away from Yellowstone it hit home a bit. This book also made me curious enough about the Supervolcano that I looked things up and watched the BBC movie Supervolcano.

One of the best quotes from this book about the inhumanity these kids saw was...

“For the first time ever, I felt ashamed of my species. The volcano had taken our homes, our food, our automobiles, and our airplanes, but it hadn’t taken our humanity. No, we’d given that up on our own.”

I enjoyed this book and had a hard time putting it down and look forward to the next installment in this series.

I received this book from netgalley and will definitely be buying this book for the city library I work at.

4 ½ Stars