Review : The Other Life

Posted by on March 23, 2012 10:45 am in 2 stars reads | 5 comments

The Other Life by Suzanne Winnacker
Pages : 315
Genre : YA, Post-Apocalypse
Series : The Other Life, Book 1
My Rating :

What it’s about :

3 years, 1 month, 1 week and 6 days : that’s the time Sherry has spent living in a sealed bunker with her family, after a deadly strand of rabies threatened mankind. When they suddenly run out of food, Sherry and her father decide to face the dangerous outside world for the first time in years.

The two are not ready for what they find outside. The Weepers, mutant killers, capture Sherry’s father and she is left alone behind. That’s when she meets Joshua and his group of survivors, who promise to help her find her father – if it is not too late.

My Thoughts :

This is the most difficult kind of review to write : I didn’t love the book, but I didn’t hate it either. It falls somewhere in the middle, in that very grey zone that is difficult to define. And it seems that I am almost alone in my zone, since most of my Goodreads friends gave it 3 stars and up.

I think the best way to describe my feelings toward the book was : indifference. I never connected to Sherry. I felt everything went too fast, and that I never really got to know her. Even the glimpses from her previous life didn’t give me much about her, or her family. I wish Joshua would have brought some life into it, but even there, I didn’t feel the chemistry between him and Sherry. Or his family. The whole thing, I felt, lacked depth.

And then, there was Sherry’s constant counting. I understood what the author tried to do with it, I just didn’t think it worked really well. Plus, I really didn’t care that it had been x numbers of days since she last ate an apple. Or pasta. Or used shampoo.

There was a good pace to the story though, and the book is a really quick read. Readers who don’t like to stay in one place too long, or who prefer action to description, will probably enjoy this one. I also appreciated that the Wheepers weren’t exactly zombies, but mutants. Similar, yes, but the little differences were what gave originality to the story.

I can’t recommend or not recommend this book, as I just didn’t connect to it. I won’t be reading the next one – which is almost a relief, since I have so many series I’m following already! – but I hope other readers will appreciate this one more than I did.

Series Reading Order :

  1. The Other Life
  2. The Life Beyond (coming 2013)

5 Comments

  1. Oh, I had been hoping that this would be a spectacular read, and now that I see that it was just ok, I think I am going to go ahead and skip it. I love zombie/mutant/weird thing books, but this one just doesn’t sound like it would do it for me. Thanks for your honest and candid review. It really helped me decide that this one is better left unread.

  2. Too bad, because I think that cover is fantastic.

  3. I agree with, Kathy. The cover really caught my eye.

  4. Bummer. I’ll probably give it a go anyway. I seem to be liking these books.

  5. Thats a really well written review. I like how it was blunt and to the point. So how people get you to review their books, I would like to get one reviewed by you because it doesnt seem like your afraid to tell the truth or give a bad review on a bad book. I need someone that is not going to say oh it was awesome because they are my friends would you be interested in doing this for me?

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