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Ashfall, by Mike Mullin

Posted by Susan in Book Reviews, Dystopian, Science Fiction, Young Adult | 0 comments

Ashfall, by Mike Mullin
reviewed by Sue

Fifteen-year-old Alex is home alone when the supervolcano under Yellowstone erupts. His town collapses into a nightmare of darkness, ash, and violence, forcing him to flee. He begins a harrowing trek in search of his parents and sister, who were visiting relatives 140 miles away.

Along the way, Alex struggles through a landscape transformed by more than a foot of ash. The disaster brings out the best and worst in people desperate for food, clean water, and shelter. When an escaped convict injures Alex, he searches for a sheltered place where he can wait–to heal or to die. Instead, he finds Darla. Together, they fight to achieve a nearly impossible goal: surviving the supervolcano.

I have been immersing myself in this whole post-apocalyptic/dystopian genre for awhile now…to the point that I’m becoming a conspiracy theorist. Every time I finish another one of these novels, I make another list of supplies I need to stockpile so I could be well protected in the advent of a government collapse. The newest item on my list after reading this novel:

Guns.

Lots and lots of guns.

This book terrified me. The term “Super Volcano” is relatively new to our vernacular, but it’s actually a misnomer, in that it’s not really an official term. We tend to think of volcanoes along the likes of Mount St. Helens, Krakatoa, Vesuvius, etc, or we think of images from the movies, with hot lave slowly seeping down the side of a mountain. Yellowstone National Park, however, does not look like any of these famous volcanos, but the make-up of the earth below it is what is truly scary. There is a build-up of liquid magma that bubbles just beneath the crust. Should it erupt, it would most likely be catastrophic for the entire world.

And that is precisely what happens in Ashfall. While it’s highly improbably that Yellowstone will erupt in our lifetime, it’s not completely impossible either. The challenges young Alex faces in the wake of this disaster are so realistic, that I almost had to put the book down on several occassions.

Alex is in Cedar Falls, Iowa when disaster strikes and it doesn’t take long for the monster in people to come out. Only a few hours after the eruption, thugs are knocking down the doors of his neighbors house and threatening their lives in order to find food. That is when I grabbed my “end of the world” list and wrote in big, bold capital letters: BUY GUNS.

This book is long, and it’s full of twists and turns, but Alex and later, his traveling companion Darla, are smart kids and make a great pair. They are quick on their feet and most importantly, they learn from their mistakes. A series of unfortunate events makes it difficult for them to trust anyone, especially those in authority. They learn to adapt to the new currency and become skilled hagglers. Their brains are always working, and just when you think they have run out of luck, one of them turns up and rescues the other. In short, they make their own luck.

I had a very hard time putting this book down. It’s gritty and dark and some of the scenes are hard to read, but at the same time there is a constant undercurrent of hope. Alex refuses to give up in the quest to find his parents and sister, even to the point of passing out while walking after having gone without food for three days.

Ashfall makes the reader question so many things, not the least of which is disaster preparedness. In a world where so many of us depend on the kindness of strangers, and so many rely on the Government for rescue operations when awful events strike, Ashfall forces us to take a look at the grizzly alternative to the comfortable life so many of us are accustomed to.