Tuesday 18 December 2012

Review: White Horse by Alex Adams

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Title: White Horse

Author: Alex Adams

Series: White Horse #1

Publisher: Atria/Emily Bestler Books

Publication date: April 2012

Format: ebook (NetGalley)

Genre: Horror - Post Apocalyptic

White Horse

 

 

THE WORLD HAS ENDED, BUT HER JOURNEY HAS JUST BEGUN.

Thirty-year-old Zoe leads an ordinary life until the end of the world arrives. She is cleaning cages and floors at Pope Pharmaceuticals when the president of the United States announces that human beings are no longer a viable species. When Zoe realises that everyone she loves is disappearing, she starts running. Scared and alone in a shockingly changed world, she embarks on a remarkable journey of survival and redemption. Along the way, Zoe comes to see that humans are defined not by their genetic code, but rather by their actions and choices. White Horse offers hope for a broken world, where love can lead to the most unexpected places.


My thoughts:


My first thought about this read was that it really did pleasantly surprise me - in the spine tingly, horrifying way. It was definitely more towards the creepy side than I expected which made it that much better since I love a good scary read.

 

What I loved most about this book was how intense it was. I loved how I couldn't stop reading and I got little adrenaline rushes at moments where characters were trying to beat the odds. It was an incredibly suspenseful read which had me on the edge of my seat -  always a good thing.

 

The plot was great. It was realistic to an extent too which gave the story a little more depth. The settings of the book and the apocalypse was explained in detail which was great. There's so many zombie-like novels where the settings just start off with loads of zombies and there's no given reason for it - it just happened. This one gives a lot of backstory throughout the whole book which gave a lot of a sense of how desperate the world got at some points.

 

The chapters are split between what happens to the main character in the past (before the apocalypse) and what's happening in the present. It's what gives the plot some backstory which I already said is a good thing but sometimes it got a little frustrating. It made for a lot of suspense when a character is about to die or something just as extreme and then the chapter jumps right back into the past again. It was great in that sense, it made me want to read on to find out what happens as soon as possible. But sometimes, it confused me, especially at the beginning, Something would be mentioned in the present in a way that I thought I should have known about it already - I thought, at times, that I had missed out on something important. Said event would only be explained about three quarters of the way through the book which I didn't really like. 

 

The characters were great. The main character, Zoe, was really relatable. I thought she was written perfectly - she was flawed and she knew it, she was strong and yet had her vulnerable moments and she had these great loveable moments in the story that made me root for her the entire book. I thought the other characters in the book weren't so great though. They were introduced too late in my opinion. It takes a little bit of time to get to know a character, so when the others were introduced halfway through, I pretty much didn't really care what happened to them.

 

The writing was good. I didn't love it, it wasn't the most amazing book ever that blew my mind but it was a good read. I liked how the author made the book to be so intense and full of desperation but I was confused by the writing sometimes. I had those moments where I had to go back and read over a couple of paragraphs because something about them made me feel that it wasn't worded right. Other than that though, it was good.

 

Overall, I like this read and I want to find out what happens next. For those of you who are a fan of creepy novels or zombies, I recommend it. It has an edge to it that I really liked.

 

My rating: 7/10

 

Alex Adams:

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