Title: The New Wild
Author: Holly Brasher
Series: Stand Alone
Publisher: Full Fathom Five Digital
Publication Date: August 26, 2015
Source: Netgalley
Take a moment to think of the world as you know it now. Every where you go you can find people looking at their cell phones. It doesn't take a well trained eye to see trash littered along the freeway. There are still people out there that think recycling is a waste of time. Others refuse to watch their water use. In short, a lot of humans haven't been taking very good of the Earth.
Well guess what? Mother Nature is pissed! In The New World by Holly Brasher we are thrown into a world where Mother Nature has decided to take things into her own hands and rid the Earth of EVERYTHING that isn't natural...and those who haven't been doing their part to take care of it.
Our story begins at a summer camp, which actually seems more like a 5 star resort. The kids spend all day on their computers and tablets. They have their own private bedrooms inside of their cabins. They eat freeze dried food and don't even bother with recycling the packaging when they are done. Except for Jackie. She keeps all of the containers that she used during her stay to recycle when she returns home.
Summer camp is nearing its end and all the the girls and boys that are in their last year of camp get to go on a special camping trip that has always been kept hush hush. It is during the night of that trip that Mother Nature decides to make humans pay for the damage that they have done. Jackie, for one reason or another, survives this attack and finds herself alone wondering what she is going to do. She is in the middle of nowhere and over 3,000 miles away from home.
Our story then follows Jackie along in her journey to get home to her mom...who she hopes is still alive.
A lot was going on in The New World, but unfortunately not very much of it was very good.
In the beginning there was a horrible attempt at dialog between 3 teenage girls. It felt forced and unnatural. It felt as though Brasher really did not understand how a teenage girl thinks and just went off of what she thought they would sound and act like. Stereotype usage was very strong.
Then there was the use of language. There were actually a lot of swear words. More than you would normally come across in a young adult title. Part of me is just writing about the swear words for you to be aware in case you don't like them in your literature, the other part of me found it weird. They felt used to create feeling in what the characters were thinking or feeling at the time. Also, sometimes they would be used in full force or the weaker form that is less offensive would be used. It just felt odd and it was very noticeable.
As far as characters go. They were pretty flat and not developed well. Relationships between them were the same. It was rather disappointing.
But the most disappointing thing about this book is pretty much nothing really happens for the majority of the book! The whole story is pretty flat just like its characters. That being said, when things actually did "happen" they were either gross and nasty or very very weird.
I am probably being more than a little generous in my rating of this book, but there were some things that I thought were done okay. Some of the descriptions were nicely done and I had no problem imagining them.
Read this one at your own risk. It is short though and doesn't take long to get through, so you won't end up wasting too much of your time on it if you decide to give it a chance anyways.
My Rating
2 of 5 stars
This review is based on an eARC provided by the publisher via Netgalley.
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