Review Detail

Ashes by Ilsa J. Bick was absolutely FANTASTIC. It was all kinds of creepy and gruesome and horrifying and utterly riveting, and even a bit romantic in certain parts.

You might look at the 480 page count of Ashes and be deterred. But let me just say – they flew by. I’d be on page 90 and then all of the sudden on page 202 and I could not believe I’d already read that much. The pacing of Ashes is absolutely brilliant and the story really, really sucks you in.

I loved the variety of characters. Alex was brave and yet terrified at the same time, and I really admired her for her actions throughout the book. There is a bit of a love triangle but not really? It’s hard to explain. And I really loved the character of Ellie, although she was (at times) a bit too mature for an 8 year old girl.

Just a fair warning to animal lovers like me – there are about 2 pages in Ashes that contains some pretty graphic dog attacking/dog death, but the rest of the book is SO worth it, so if you can stomach it or skip over it, I highly recommend reading Ashes despite it.

Overall, I freaking loved Ashes. I loved the pacing and the tone and the characters. Ashes has such an interesting concept – zombies but not zombies, and they’re not even really the whole focus of the book. And the ending was like whaaaaat! I absolutely can’t wait to read the next book in this series, Shadows, which releases some time next year.

Review originally posted on my blog http://hobbitsies.net/2011/09/ashes-by-ilsa-j-bick/