all those people who are afraid that the legalization of gay marriage will lead to people wanting to marry their pets have every reason to be afraid.

as soon as it becomes legal to marry a book, i am going to marry this one. and i assume at some point i will cheat on this book and divorce it and marry another book, but for a little while, we will have a storybook relationship and a joint checking account.

and it will be wonderful.

so - okay - for those of you who have not had the opportunity to read this since it is not out until OCTOBER (try to win a firstreads copy - there is one up for grabs), i will give you the rundown:

supervolcano.

that was enough to get my attention. but if you need more, you should know that this is about a fifteen-year-old boy left alone for the weekend, trying to get to his family in the wake of the mother of all natural disasters. bandits, cannibals, fighting, snow, ash ash ash, murder, rape, love, camps, marauders, fantastic action and real human sentiment.

i loved every minute of it, i really did.

i read a lot of teen survival stuff, it's kind of my thing. and this one does it just right - the way i wish more books would do it. it is very realistic. sometimes these books want you to believe kids in this situation become all goody-goody and selfless. surviving does not automatically make you a good person. in fact, it usually means the opposite - survivors are the ones who have to make hard decisions sometimes. morality does not necessarily translate or apply in the same way. true, this kid is not entirely selfish - he definitely has heart and respect for human life and holds on to some pity.

but he'll do some stuff.

and the girl he meets up with is the same way. complicated. capable. not some helpless creature, but also not some strong bright angel. the responses feel very natural and realistic. and they both have moments of weakness and failure. these are characters i can root for. prince charming doesn't care if you root for him, he is self-satisfied enough to not even notice you. alex and darla are flawed marvels of stubborn life in a newly shitty world.

and there is so much texture, so much background. this world is completely realized; even if some of the scenes are brief as alex makes his way, they are always richly detailed and ba-DOW!!

i cannot recommend this book highly enough, to you people who like this kind of thing.true, it is dark and bleak and tough, but the violence is never gratuitous or shock-value. it is similar to the way things played out in the road. this is just the way things are. get on board or don't survive.

AND THERE IS A PROPOSED SEQUEL!! CAN I HAVE IT NOW PLEASE!?

love love love, and i made a horrible strangled noise when something happened THAT I HATED, MR. MULLIN, but it had the intended effect, i guess. but still, i hated it. heart = broke.

did i mention that this book is good?

but, really, why does this kid drop so many architectural terms?? muntins?? porte-cochère?? there were more, i don't know 'em. la-di-dah, alex, is all i can say...

okay enough.
read it.

IN OCTOBER!!!


hhahaa, suckers!