Monsters (Ashes Trilogy Series #3)

by Ilsa J. Bick

Overview

The Hunger Games mixes with The Walking Dead in this post-apocalyptic YA series that comes to a hair-raising conclusion in Monsters.



The Changed are on the move. The Spared are out of time. The End...is now. When her parents died, Alex thought things couldn't get much worse—until the doctors found the monster in her head. She headed into the wilderness as a good-bye, to leave everything behind. But then the end of the world happened, and Alex took the first step down a treacherous road of betrayal and terror and death. Now, with no hope of rescue—on the brink of starvation in a winter that just won't quit—she discovers a new and horrifying truth. The Change isn't over. The Changed are still evolving. And...they've had help.



With this final volume of The Ashes Trilogy, Ilsa J. Bick delivers a riveting, blockbuster finish, returning readers to a brutal, post-apocalyptic world where no one is safe and hope is in short supply. A world where, from these ashes, the monsters will rise.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781606841778
Publisher:	Lerner Publishing Group
Publication date:	09/10/2013
Series:	Ashes Trilogy Series , #3
Pages:	688
Product dimensions:	5.84(w) x 8.42(h) x 2.06(d)
Lexile:	HL770L (what's this?)
Age Range:	14 - 17 Years

About the Author

Ilsa J. Bick is a child psychiatrist, as well as a film scholar, surgeon wannabe, former Air Force major, and an award-winning, best-selling author of short stories, e-books, and novels. She has written extensively in the Star Trek, Battletech, Mechwarrior: Dark Age, and Shadowrun universes. Her original stories have been featured in numerous anthologies, magazines and online venues. Ilsa's YA paranormal, Draw the Dark, was also a semifinalist for the 2009 Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award (as Stalag Winter). Ilsa currently lives with her family and other furry creatures in rural Wisconsin and across the street from the local Hebrew cemetery. One thing she loves about the neighbors: They're very quiet and come around for sugar only once in a blue moon.

Editorial Reviews

2013-08-15
All of the Ashes Trilogy storylines converge in this action-packed series conclusion. Picking up immediately where Shadows (2012) left off, indomitable heroine Alex again claws her way out of one danger and into another. Rescued from a cave-in by Wolf, she rejoins the Changed, despite the risk of ending up on the menu, and gradually learns Wolf's and Peter's secrets. Meanwhile, other familiar faces reappear, each belonging to one of various other small groups scrapping for survival. The jarring narration jumps back and forth between Alex's story and the other characters', often in short bursts with deadly-peril parallels in characters' situations. There are so many near brushes with death that, at times, danger becomes tedious and expected, losing some tension. It's recovered through well-crafted sentences, especially Bick's signature, deliberate cliffhanger chapter endings that ensure that readers won't be able to stop until they've reached the climactic showdown. As the novel progresses, the seemingly disparate storylines bleed into one another more and more, and connections and relationships among factions and characters are clarified as all storylines converge on Finn's grudge against Rule, his influence on other characters and the terrifying results of his experiments on his Changed army. The ending wraps up most questions but still leaves enough mystery for readers to dwell on. An opus of blood, gore and pain that will leave fans breathless. (Horror. 14 & up)

Kirkus Reviews