Ashes, Ashes by Jo Treggiari (review)

 The end of the world came, and went.

16 year old Lucy Holloway (or was it 17?) lives in the wilderness because her whole family has died thanks to the plague. She lives off of mashed acorns, and the very few animals that she catches in her traps. Life is rough, but she seems to manage... that is until a wild pack of dogs are on her lead. She gets recued by some 'handsome' guy named Aiden, who invites her to his camp 'Hellgate'. Of course, she refuses at first, because frankly, she's totally capable of surviving on her own. Things change when a tsunami hits and Lucy has no choice but to head for safety. She finds herself racing through the wilderness, past bridges, over rocky lands to reach Camp Hellgate. The journey is short, and tiresome, but it's all worth it, right? No, when she arrives at the camp, she finds the Sweepers, people who find survivors of the plague to 'help' them, or so Lucy was taught to believe. In truth, the Sweepers take the innocent into their labs and test on them.

    There were some who were never vaccinated as children, Lucy being one of them, and the un-vaccinated should have died one hundred percent. Lucy is still alive. What makes her so special? Why are the Sweepers after her?

    I hope I didn't spoil too much, and sorry for the short and belated (I finished the book a few weeks ago) review.  
    Hmm... I was a little disappointed at this book. I was seriously looking forward to reading it, because it was a dystopian and the cover page was just... killer! Unfortunately, from the very start, I was bored. I find that it's ok to describe things in the beginning, you know, let the readers become familiar with the main aspect or the protagonists life, but to go on and on and on... well, it really started to drain my enthusiasm. I did not give up, though. I was hoping that maybe all the excitement was just around the corner, and when something did happen (the scene where the wild pack of dogs were after Lucy) it happened around page 40 or something, and lasted a few pages. In those few pages, she met Aiden- who later on proves to be a love interest- and he told her about his camp. He invited. She declined, and we're back to the wilderness where Lucy made her camp. That's all fine, because she later on seeks out the help of camp Hellgate because her own camp has been devastated by a tsunami, and get this; when she arrives at the camp, she sees Aiden hanging out with this other girl who we later find out is Del. Love triangle much? The Del girl proves to be very annoying, and the worst part was that Aiden didn't seem to mind her flirting habits. He leaned into them. The romance between Aiden and Lucy only started to develop near the end, and by develop, well, I don't really mean develop, it just sort of became a little bit obvious that the two liked each other. That's all.

    Then there was the plot.... To be honest, I'm not even sure what the plot was- ok, I'm exaggerating. The plot was clear, but it wasn't very developed. Of course, that's just my opinion. I find that our protagonist and her friends didn't face to many challenges, and the solutions were very simple... I don't want to give away to much. If you're reading this, I suggest you still read the book, but don't put your hopes up too high... Still, try it, because everyone has different tastes. 

             I'll give this one ★★★  
By the way, go check out the post where I mentioned this was one of my top ten wanted books of 2012: http://ellechanteremporium.blogspot.ca/2012/03/ok-heres-other-half-of-my-must-read.html