Posts By: Giselle

I received this book for free from Pocket Star in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

In this enthralling debut thriller written in the vein of Contagion, a young couple struggles to save their plague-stricken son as they desperately fight back against a tyrannical government.

A new strain of the bubonic plague is diagnosed in London. Before it can be contained it spreads through the population, faster and deadlier than anyone could have imagined. Three weeks is all it takes to decimate the country.

Johnny and Liz are devastated when their young son, Nathan, starts to show symptoms, but Liz phones the authorities anyway, and a few hours later the army arrives and boards up their house.

Now Nathan is dying and there is nothing they can do to help him. Hours pass like weeks as their little boy grows weaker and weaker. All Liz wants is for them to die with some dignity, but the authorities refuse to help. Then their Internet and phones stop working. Cut off from the world and stuck inside their house, the family tries its best to cope-but there is nothing they can do to stop the lethal epidemic.

I guess I should have expected it, but Plague was a lot more… grossly detailed and harder to read than I expected – and not in a good way. I knew I was in for a heartbreaking read, but this is really nothing but a short story of a family’s harsh misfortunes during a plague epidemic. Which, I admit, sounds like it could be a good read, except it was simply too… graphic. Too quick of a disturbing tale and not enough depth to balance it. It’s an explicit story of a dying family. Period. We don’t ever get out of this boarded up house to see how the world is fairing other than just the knowledge that everyone is dying. The few technical details we do get are fuzzy at best. If the whole world is in the same situation, I doubt a doctor would have time for house visits, let alone bother wrapping up “most” of a house in plastic. Is that supposed to keep the plague from spreading? Should we tell the bacteria that that one open window is off limits?

But really, if you seriously want to see a family die from the plague – and I mean play by plays of diarrhea, vomiting, and maggots eating their baby’s face (not effing kidding!), just use Google images, yeah? Yes it will be as gross as this book. Also, you may need professional help. I know I surely want some to get these images out of my head. It’s been a week since I finished reading this book and I still get grossed out by some of the mental images that will surely never leave my mind. If you’re a parent – though even if you’re not – you do not want to read story about a child suffering like this. A child that would rather die than keep being in such agonizing pain. I’m sorry but I just can’t deal with that. I wanted to DNF it very badly in several instances but I was also curious at how the author had decided to end this one. I was disappointed by that, too, not surprisingly. For one I had completely seen it coming fairly early on. And secondly it was a tad forced to give us that “ray of hope” or whatever.

As far as everything else. The characters are not exactly realistic nor likeable. The mother spends more time arguing with herself or having sex in the shower instead of being with her dying son – sleeping or not. As a mother I cannot fathom being able to function or think about anything else if I was in that situation. The father was just irritating, plain and simple. The writing was not my favorite, either. I felt it was choppy at times and lacked the emotional depth that this story deserved. So instead of being emotional, I was simply nauseous by the sheer horrifying nature of it all.

…

This book may have traumatized me.

Excuse me while I go hurl.

1 Cold Espresso