From the Bookshelf of Apocalypse Whenever…

The Eleventh Plague

Jeff Hirsch

Why we're reading this: The wars that followed The Collapse nearly destroyed civilization. Now, twenty years later, the world is …more
[close] The wars that followed The Collapse nearly destroyed civilization. Now, twenty years later, the world is faced with a choice—rebuild what was or make something new.

Stephen Quinn, a quiet and dutiful fifteen-year-old scavenger, travels Post-Collapse America with his Dad and stern ex-Marine Grandfather. They travel light. They keep to themselves. Nothing ever changes. But when his Grandfather passes suddenly and Stephen and his Dad decide to risk it all to save the lives of two strangers, Stephen's life is turned upside down. With his father terribly injured, Stephen is left alone to make his own choices for the first time.

Stephen’s choices lead him to Settler's Landing, a lost slice of the Pre-Collapse world where he encounters a seemingly benign world of barbecues, baseball games and days spent in a one-room schoolhouse. Distrustful of such tranquility, Stephen quickly falls in with Jenny Tan, the beautiful town outcast. As his relationship with Jenny grows it brings him into violent conflict with the leaders of Settler's Landing who are determined to remake the world they grew up in, no matter what the cost.

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What Members Thought

Sep 17, 2012 Stephanie rated it really liked it

Shelves: fiction, young-adult, dystopian-post-apocalyptic

Why do I love these post-apocalyptic books so much? And the zombies... I love zombies. This book doesn't have zombies but the world is in ruins after a world war and killer flu virus called P11, the Eleventh Plague. Stephen and his dad and grandpa have been surviving as salvagers, traversing the US from South to North and back again, collecting anything they can sell at the big camps in Canada and Florida. Things take a dramatic turn for the worse when grandpa dies suddenly and then dad gets hur ...more

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Mar 31, 2013 Kelly Roll rated it it was ok

While this was a perfectly fine coming of age novel it didn't really engage me. I felt the boy/girl relationship developed far too quickly especially since Jenny was such an unsympathetic person. Also, and here's the thing for me as a reader, if you are going to set your story in a dystopic setting then , for me, the dystopia has to be driving the story. In this case I felt that I could have substituted many other reasons for the boy being an outsider in a town, learning to integrate with the to ...more

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Oct 21, 2011 Tracy rated it liked it

Shelves: read-it-and-was-okay, ya-apoc-fiction

The book starts out with our protagonist, Stephen Quinn, burying his newly deceased grandfather with his dad. We learn that Stephen and his dad are basically scavengers and at one point they ran a trade business after the big event-the plague-that killed lots of folks. Stephen as a 15 year old is coming into his own, but his dad is just not quite there with him. Dad lets go and moves forward.

Stephen and his dad run across slavers, people who kidnap people for just that, slavery. Blah blah blah, ...more

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Aug 17, 2020 Laura rated it it was ok

Shelves: priority

I’ve mostly been avoiding post-apocalyptic books - particularly books about diseases - this year. (Hmmm...I wonder why? 🧐)

I chose this because it was the oldest book on my TBR list. It was a mistake. It ended up annoying me and I skimmed the last 50 pages to see how it ended.

I used to love young adult books. I’ve been struggling to read them lately. I think it’s because I look at things from the perspective of the parent now - what would I want my kid to do? How would I react in this situation? ...more

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