Sherry and her father leave the safety of the bunker and find a devastated and empty LA, smashed to pieces by bombs and haunted by ‘Weepers’ - rabid humans infected with a weaponized rabies virus.
While searching for food in a supermarket, Sherry’s father disappears and Sherry is saved by Joshua, a boy-hunter. He takes her to Safe-haven, a tumble-down vineyard in the hills outside LA, where a handful of other survivors are picking up the pieces of their ‘other lives’. As she falls in love for the first time, Sherry must save her father, stay alive and keep Joshua safe when his desire for vengeance threatens them all. (From Goodreads)
This book would probably make a really great pilot for a TV show. It moved incredibly fast, got out a lot of information as efficiently as possible, and set up an interesting world. However, holding this book out as a separate entity, knowing that the series will go on, but not to the extent of an entire TV show, it was lacking for me.
A lot of the information that we get felt like it was forced. I didn't understand how everyone was so trusting and willing to give up everything they knew to strangers, so when answers just came when they were asked for I was a little uneasy. Actually, everything felt like it happened too quickly - the relationship between Joshua and Sherry was lightening speed - and the way that Sherry comes to think of this safe haven as her home felt a little hasty as well. She seemed overly attached to a place she'd only been a brief amount of time. I also really didn't understand Sherry's family dynamic. The whole family concedes a lot to Sherry for no apparent reason and her mother is really quick to allow Sherry to put herself in danger.
And the weepers, seemed just like any other zombie. The whole book seems just like any other zombie novel. Aside from the fact that Sherry and her family have been living in a bunker for three years, there's not a lot that's new in this post-apocalyptic world.
With a little more character development and possibly slowing the pace down a bit I think there really could be something here. There were small gems (and by gems I mean things that are probably really gross, but I find them interesting) that could have really been turned into something. But a lot of the things that initally caught my eye were overshadowed by other things. Considering how fast it moved, there were a lot of links missing from one moment to the next. It's a quick read, so it definitely had room for some of the gaps to be filled or relationships to be drawn out and explained a bit more. This is definitely my own opinion, however, and maybe that TV show pilot characteristic is enough.
