Review: After the Ending - Lindsey Fairleigh

Title: After The Ending (The Ending #1)

Author: Lindsey Fairleigh

Publication date: February 22nd 2013 by L2 Books
Add It: Goodreads
Purchase: Amazon, Barnes & Noble

Summary from goodreads: The first book in a new Post-apocalyptic Romance series.

The Virus spread. Billions died. The Ending began. We may have survived the apocalypse, but the Virus changed us.

When people started getting sick, “they” thought it was just the flu. My roommate, my boyfriend, my family…they’re all gone now. I got sick too. I should have died with them—with the rest of the world—but I didn’t. I thought witnessing the human population almost disappear off the face of the earth was the craziest thing I’d ever experience. I was so wrong. My name is Dani O’Connor, I’m twenty-six-years-old, and I survived The Ending.

The Virus changed everything. The world I knew is gone, and life is backwards. We’ve all had to start over. I’ve been stripped of my home, my dreams…all that is me. I’m someone else now—broken and changed. Other survivors’ memories and emotions haunt me. They invade my mind until I can no longer separate them from my own. I won’t let them consume me. I can’t. My name is Zoe Cartwright, I’m twenty-six-years-old, and I survived The Ending.

We’ve been inseparable for most of our lives, and now our friendship is all we have left. The aftermath of the Virus has stranded us on opposite sides of the United States. Trusting strangers, making sacrifices, killing—we’ll do anything to reach one another. Fear and pain may be unavoidable, but we’re strong…we’re survivors. But to continue surviving in this unfamiliar world plagued by Crazies and strange new abilities, we have to adapt. We have to evolve.

And more than anything, we have to find each other.

What I think: As some of you might have noticed, I love-love-love dystopian books. When this came around on Netgalley I just couldn't not read it. I have to say that I did really like the concept of the book, the alternating story lines between the two main characters Dani and Zoe where at some times really annoying (I just wanted to know what would happen to one of them) and at other times refreshing and interesting.

The story seemed very comparable to the tv series The Walking Dead (which I also watch, I should really stop watching and reading that much series). It's the apocalypse two best friends get separated and need to find a way to each other without being turned into a crazy. 

I found myself sitting on the tip of my chair on several occasions, I even catched myself holding my breath because I was that panicked about things happening in the book.

As in every YA book I've read there is some romance in this book, but there is certainly room for more. I hope that the second book will go a bit deeper into the love stories that have developed in this first one. This book is definitely more about explaining what has happened and how people go on with their lives after something this catastrophically. 

There is one major thing that has been bothering me throughout the book and even after. How is it possible that the internet is still working when almost all of mankind is gone? A large part of the book the main characters have contact via email. It's just so surreal that it is still working. Every time the 'spotty' internet was mentioned I just got really annoyed because it doesn't add anything to the book. It's just a really big flaw in my opinion.

But to go on, the book itself brings up so many questions, and that is of course a good thing. I can't wait to find out what other romances will come into play and to find out who Clara is.

The one thing that makes this book really stand out between all the other deadly-virus-end-of-earth books are the abilities that some of the characters have. It gives the book a little fantasy twist which makes it an even better story. 

As you might have already understood is that I'm eagerly awaiting the second book. I highly recommend this book to anyone who is interested in Dystopian YA or zombie, end of time books.  

With thanks to Netgalley for providing me with the ARC of this book.