Review: After the End by Amy Plum

Title: After the End (After the End #1)
Author: Amy Plum
Publisher: HarperTeen
Release date: May 6th 2014
Source: Edelweiss
Format: eARC

Rating: 4/5

Buy on: Amazon | B&N | BookDepository

She’s searching for answers to her past. They’re hunting her to save their future.

World War III has left the world ravaged by nuclear radiation. A lucky few escaped to the Alaskan wilderness. They've survived for the last thirty years by living off the land, being one with nature, and hiding from whoever else might still be out there.

At least, this is what Juneau has been told her entire life.

When Juneau returns from a hunting trip to discover that everyone in her clan has vanished, she sets off to find them. Leaving the boundaries of their land for the very first time, she learns something horrifying: There never was a war. Cities were never destroyed. The world is intact. Everything was a lie.

Now Juneau is adrift in a modern-day world she never knew existed. But while she's trying to find a way to rescue her friends and family, someone else is looking for her. Someone who knows the extraordinary truth about the secrets of her past.

Initially I thought this book was the dystopian genre, but after reading it I'm not sure if it´s science fiction or paranormal, but the first chapters of the plot reminds me at least a little bit of the movie The Village.

After the End is told from the point of view of Juneau and Miles; Juneau is a seventeen year old girl, she lives with her clan in the uninhabited part of Alaska, where her parents and friends took refuge 30 years ago, shortly before the third world war, which ended with the world and the people that survived was affected by radiation. She lives with her clan in a safe place, but she must never leave their territory, because they could be attacked by other survivors that could harm her or at least that's what Juneau has been told all her life. But when her clan is kidnapped and she tries to find them she learns that everything the elders have told her was a lie, there was never a third world war, but for some reason unknown to her they been hiding and the world outside is overwhelming for her, but still she´ll do everything to find her clan and rescue them.

Miles is a privileged young guy who at the time isn´t on good terms with his father since he was expelled from high school, so his father put him to work as a punishment in the mail area of his mega company. But somewhere along the way their paths cross and they spend some time together, Miles thinks that she isn´t right in the head and Juneau thinks that he´s a good for nothing and they bicker and banter a lot of the time (their banter is really funny).

Overall, I really liked this book!, the idea of this story is really good and original (in some parts), it hooked me from the start, the story was very engaging, action-packed, with mystery and paranormal/sci-fi elements. It has a cliffhanger ending that was little abrupt for my liking but it left me wanting to read the next book as soon as possible.