Prodigious Plague

*Read this ARC via Around The World ARC Tours

This story gets a great 4 gnomes out of 5 gnomes because it draws you in right away and you’ll find yourself really caring for the characters.  The cover for the book really gives off this feeling of foreboding and thus is a great package for this story.  

This kind of dystopian story has a gritty feel to it that reminded me of the book The Road by Cormac McCarthy but this book has a much less depressing and more hopeful feel to it.  You’ll have to trust me on that though seeing as the story starts with the digging of a grave.

Ever since the plague that wiped out so many people, society has most definitely broken down.  Stephen and his family are scavengers who travel North and South depending on the time of year and trade things that they salvage in their travels for supplies that they need.  This is a rather lonely life where you can only rely on your family and no one else.

It looks like Stephen and his father are mostly alone in the world and then they run into trouble and nothing is ever the same after that.  As you can imagine, having a lawless world tends to bring out the worst in people.  The worst of the worst in this story are the slavers and mercenaries that will do anything for profit and to survive.

There are some seemingly safe havens in the world and Stephen finds such a place.  As seems to be the way with any idyllic place there are troubles beneath the surface of this community.  They are usually very against having outsiders but an exception is made for him.  This doesn't sit well with everyone in the community.

He meets Jenny, who is an outcast in pretty much every sense of the word.  She was adopted when she was a baby but she's a child of the enemy that caused the plague so it's hard for people to trust her even though she's grown up with them.  They slowly get to know each other because he's way different then the other boys in town and she also seems drawn to him, in her own way.  

It's great seeing Stephen discover this new kind of culture that will seem relatively normal to the reader but vastly foreign to what he's used to.  In this world though it's dangerous to grow complacent and there are dangers all around.

Things start spiraling out of control when a prank does not go as planned.  Then the question becomes who will survive and will an understanding be reached in time to stop further violence.

Overall this is a great book with a character that you get to see grow up quickly and really root for.  You'll be wondering what decision Stephen is going to make, right up until the very end.  This book is definitely worth a look and really makes you think about what you would do in the same situation.  I can’t wait to see what the author writes next.