REVIEW for Pandemic

I received a copy of this book through Net Galley.

TITLE:                   Pandemic

AUTHOR:             Yvonne Ventresca

GENRE:                YA

RATING:              

If I had to write a very short review of this book it would be "wow".  I absolutely loved this book.  I am a huge fan of  "stranded in a disaster/mother nature goes nuts" type of read (yes, I know its not an actual genre, but I just made it up LOL). 

Pandemic is THE perfect read for anyone who is looking for that creepy yet hopeful plot line where you know that everything written on the page is VERY plausible, while, at the same time, hoping (praying) that it never actually happens to you and just basically stays on the written page.

Author Ventresca does a terrific job of introducing her characters and setting up the premise before throwing the reader into a catastrophe that is all too real.  Unlike many dystopian type books - there are no zombies, undead or walking corpses and this was such a relief.  Rather, this book is a story about what happens if we are hit with the next powerful plague, something as seemingly insignificant as the flu.  

The book pulls no punches and nobody is sacred, in fact, I felt for the main character Lil who will have to go through so much and may not in fact survive it all (no spoilers sorry!).

Written extremely well without being gross or too detailed, this book kept me reading page after page, in fact, I found I could not put it down, especially once people start to get infected.  

I love the resilience of the main characters, even when they are asked to make some very tough choices and this book made me do some serious thinking about what kind of person I would be in this type of emergency.  I also like how Lil learns some very important lessons throughout the storyline.

The only two things that were a bit of an irritant to me where the Mr. B. plot line which may have worked well in the beginning of the book, but dragged the story down a bit after that, especially when Lil keeps the whole situation a secret, way past when it should have been.  Also, the whole "relationships"  thing with two of the characters was not necessary to the story as I kept asking myself "really, that's important at a time like this?".

Otherwise, the author hit it right out of the field with this one and I was so mad when I kept seeing the % on my Kindle inch its way up and up - it meant the end of an absolutely terrifying but brilliant book.