One horrifying day will change the life of sixteen-year-old Shane Tucker and every other kid in the world.
In a span of mere hours, the entire adult population is decimated, leaving their children behind to fend for themselves and deal with the horrific aftermath of the freak occurrence. As one of the newly made elders in his small town, Shane finds himself taking on the role of caretaker for a large group of juvenile survivors. One who just happens to be Kelly Douglas—an out-of-his-league classmate—who, on any other day, would have never given Shane a second glance.
Together, they begin their quest to find out why all of the adults were slaughtered. What they find is even more horrifying than anything they could have expected—the annihilation of the adults was only the beginning. Shane and his friends are not the unlucky survivors left to inherit this new, messed-up planet. Now, they are its next victims. There is an unknown power out there, and it won’t stop until every person in the world is dead. – Goodreads Synopsis
The Last Orphans Review
Well, the basic story itself is familiar to anyone who has read a lot of post-apocalyptic works. Something happens to all the adults (presumably world-wide) and suddenly the oldest kids are forced to be the elders of this new world and try to figure out how to keep everyone safe and alive, but then they find out that they’ll soon be targeted too, for some reason.
This is very much one of those middle-of-the-road books that you neither love nor hate. N.W. Harris does do a good job with the emotional impact on the kids and even though he’s just churning out his version of this tired tale of woe, he does make you feel -and root- for them. At the same time the reasoning behind the animals attacking is so unbelievable that as soon as I read it, I gaped in disbelief and had to force myself to keep reading, so the writing could definitely use some tweaking in some areas. Readers without the ability to enjoy bad Syfy movies for what they are, not what they could be, are going to find themselves unable to move past the sheer ridiculousness of the revelation.
Overall, I can’t find a single reason to recommend this book or even try to continue with the series. A lackluster but thankfully quick paced read that fails to thrill. Younger readers might enjoy it, but be forewarned that there is mention of sexual assault. The Last Orphans seems mired in mediocrity, and readers looking for something original shouldn’t bother with it.
But, hey, maybe I’m wrong. After all, almost sixty percent of its reviews on Amazon are five stars.
Make up your own mind, buy The Last Orphans on Amazon.
Title: The Last Orphans | Series: The Last Orphans #1 | Author: N. W. Harris (site) | Publisher: Clean Teen Publishing (site) | Pub. Date: 2014-11-11 | Pages: 263 | ISBN13: 9781940534893 | Genre(s): Science Fiction & Young Adult | Language: English | Triggers: Sexual Assault | Rating: 3 out of 5 | Date Read: 2016-5-11 | Source: Kindle Promo
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Welcome back on my WP feed! 🙂
I liked the blurb but I won’t bother with the book
I’m happy to be back on your feed. I wouldn’t be here if I wasn’t stubborn. Before they even investigated, they saw I was hosted on bluehost and immediately said “Contact them!”. I said “Uhm, no… if other feed readers are picking up my feed, but yours isn’t, it’s not a bluehost problem.” Thankfully the tech actually listened and investigated.
So it’s just another generic YA post apocalyptic novel then 🙁
Which would you say is a successful one that has a similar topic?