Ashes, Ashes is a treat, a book that one imagines, and hopes, will find a large, appreciative following. There is something here for just about everyone – romance, survival drama, action, mystery. The story never flags, and the reader’s attention never wavers. and lives in Lunenberg, Nova Scotia, manages it with aplomb. It’s a difficult trick to hook a reader without dialogue or character interaction, but Treggiari, who was born in the U.K. Its opening pages, in which Lucy is on her own, provide a lot of backstory without dragging or seeming programmatic. Jo Treggiaris Ashes, Ashes is a near-future post-apocalyptic young adult novel (one of many published in the past year or so, but one that I found appealing). Even more surprising is the fact that the Sweepers seem to be looking for her in particular.Īshes, Ashes is a compelling, fast-paced read that skimps neither on characterization nor detail. Book: Ashes, Ashes Author: Jo Terggiari (JoTreggiari) Pages: 352 Age Range: 12 and up. As their lives intertwine, Lucy is surprised to find herself falling for the older boy. And there are the S’ans, zombie-like infected survivors.Įverything changes, though, when Lucy is saved from a pack of dogs by Aidan, a member of a community of survivors. If so, Jo Treggiari’s White Pine award winner, published in 2011, Ashes, Ashes, is a book which many people really enjoy. Worse, there are the Sweepers, white-suited men from the Compound on Roosevelt Island who round people up. The world after the plague is not a friendly one, mostly full of desperate survivors driven to theft. She occasionally sees people in the distance, but she keeps to herself, and has become good at hiding. She has built a home, and lives off acorn porridge, dried berries, and whatever else she can forage or hunt. Lucy “Lucky” Holloway is a 16-year-old survivor carving out an existence in a barely recognizable Central Park.

Rather, the end comes with droughts and floods, plus a smallpox epidemic that wipes out 99 per cent of the global population in just a few months.Īshes, Ashes, however, is concerned with what happens after the end. In Jo Treggiari’s stunning new YA novel, the world ends with neither a bang nor a whimper.

Ashes, Ashes by Jo Treggiari