After The End by Amy Plum
Series: After The End #1
Published by Harper Teen on May 6, 2014
Genres: Science Fiction
Pages: 352
Format: Hardcover
Source: Publisher
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She’s searching for answers to her past. They’re hunting her to save their future.

World War III has left the world ravaged by nuclear radiation. A lucky few escaped to the Alaskan wilderness. They've survived for the last thirty years by living off the land, being one with nature, and hiding from whoever else might still be out there.

At least, this is what Juneau has been told her entire life.

When Juneau returns from a hunting trip to discover that everyone in her clan has vanished, she sets off to find them. Leaving the boundaries of their land for the very first time, she learns something horrifying: There never was a war. Cities were never destroyed. The world is intact. Everything was a lie.

Now Juneau is adrift in a modern-day world she never knew existed. But while she's trying to find a way to rescue her friends and family, someone else is looking for her. Someone who knows the extraordinary truth about the secrets of her past.

This book.  What do I even say about it?  It wasn’t good, it wasn’t bad, it was just right there in the middle for me.  To say I was disappointed would be an understatement.  I haven’t finished Amy Plum’s other series, the Revenants series, but what I did read was fabulous.  I expected the same level of fabulousness from After The End and that is so not what I got.

After The End is really hard to describe in terms of the story, at least without giving things away.  When I first saw the cover and was sent a copy for review, I expected a dystopian/post-apocalyptic novel and that’s definitely not what After The End is.  After The End starts off similar to a post-apocalyptic novel but you quickly find out that the apocalypse or in this case World War III, never actually happened.  And that’s where your story starts.

Juneau has been raised as if World War III happened.  She lived in the wilderness of Alaska in a village made up of yurts with no electricity and no technology.  Her village was full of people just like her, who believe World War III was a real thing and that they were some of the few survivors.  Needless to say it’s quite a shock to her when her village is kidnapped and when she sets off to find them she finds that World War III never happened and the world is a technological wonder full of cars, tvs, cell phones, etc.  Based on the way she was raised, Juneau comes across as rather crazy to people in the modern world.  She comes across that way to readers too.  She’s a really strange girl.  I couldn’t connect to her and I honestly never even sympathized with her.  Miles, the guy she teams up with to find her family, is not much better although I did like him a bit more.  He struggles to impress his dad and he’s sure that Juneau is the key to impressing him.  Even though he thinks she’s certifiably insane, he helps her on her quest to find her family.  Along the way, feelings develop, of course.  That part really bothered me because I never saw any chemistry between the two and most of the time it really seemed like they didn’t like each other.  The romance seemed a bit too forced for my tastes.

The story is fast-paced but it kind of goes in circles.  It seemed like there was a lot of extra traveling and that Miles and Juneau ended up going out of their way a lot of the time.  I guess it wouldn’t have been a very good book though if they actually made it to their destination without a ton of problems and speed bumps.  I really don’t have much to say about the story other than that I felt there was a lot of unnecessary information and side trips.

Oh and I have to mention the ending.  Be warned, you guys, this one ends on one of the biggest cliffhangers ever.  I honestly expected there to be more to the book but instead it just ended.  There was no closure in After The End.  If you want any of your questions answered, you’re going to have to wait for the next book because this one just ended.

Overall, After The End is one I’d recommend holding off on.  Even if you’re interested I’d suggest waiting until at least the second book is out to pick this one up.  Otherwise, like me, you’ll be left with a lot of questions.

What others are saying about After The End:

The Daily Prophecy’s review: “I am left frustrated and confused by this book.”

Novel Novice’s review: “An intriguing premise is followed by an even more surprising twist of events inAmy Plum’s After the End, the first in a new captivating, genre-bending YA series.”

My Friends Are Fiction’s review: “Though I never truly developed a connection to the characters I was always interested in the plot and Plum’s writing was easy to read and enjoyable.”