Review: The Other Life by Suzanne Winnacker

Source: Usborne/Netgalley – I received this in exchange for an honest review.
Publisher: Usborne
Series: The Weepers #1
Edition: Hardcover, 320 Pages
Genre: Young Adult Sci-Fi Horror
Purchase: Amazon / Barnes & Noble / Book Depository
Rating: 3/5

3 years, 1 month, 1 week and 6 days since I’d seen daylight. One-fifth of my life. 98,409,602 seconds since the heavy, steel door had fallen shut and sealed us off from the world

Sherry has lived with her family in a sealed bunker since things went wrong up above. But when they run out of food, Sherry and her dad must venture outside. There they find a world of devastation, desolation…and the Weepers: savage, mutant killers.

When Sherry’s dad is snatched, she joins forces with gorgeous but troubled Joshua – an Avenger, determined to destroy the Weepers.

But can Sherry keep her family and Joshua safe, when his desire for vengeance threatens them all?

In compliance with FTC guidelines, I received this book through Netgalley.com

This book is on that starts out pretty strong and really grabs you. The use of the number of days since the main character did or saw something really gets to you and draws you in. The fact that she knows how many days it’s been since she’s seen th sun, or since she’s had shampoo gives you the perfect mindset for what life is like inside of a bunker. It’s boring, it’s away from the things you enjoy the most, and most of all it’s stark. I loved the way it opened, but my love starts to fade a bit once Sherry and her father venture from the bunker. The Weepers were a pretty cool take on what is normally zombie territory and I found them to be pretty creepy. Though at times I kept picking the Morlocks from The Time Machine and end up laughing. I do like the inclusion of the rabies virus, since that’s always been my favorite zombie reason.  The writing was solid and the main character’s voice had no trouble being defined. I did have a little trouble with the time shifts though. They are clearly defined so that wasn’t the problem, the problem was that I didn’t really see the correlation between that particular memory and what was going on. I did like getting a glimpse at her life pre-breakout but for me they placed in odd sections. The plot itself was fairly good though the ending is where it “thickens” so to speak and you find out some really interesting things. I do wish that it was more toward the middle though because having it at the end makes it seem a little rushed when in reality it’s not.

Sherry is a main character that I couldn’t connect to, though I tried. I enjoyed the fact that she kept track of things and that she’s loyal to her family, but she had some flaws that just became annoying to me. To put it bluntly, I found her to be kind of dumb. There were so many things that I want to yell at her about while she was trying to survive, that it just became frustrating. It’s probably not fair to dislike a character based on that, and it’s not fair because I’ve watched so many horror films that I know the outcomes of her “mistakes” but I couldn’t help it. Joshua is an alright character for me, though I couldn’t connect to him either. He’s a pretty hunky guy from what it seems, and he is certainly pretty tough but I think combined with Sherry I kind of shrugged him off  a bit. Their relationship didn’t strike me as all that fitting either, but I’m thinking that my lack luster opinion of Sherry is effecting this as well. The side characters are all pretty interesting as well and they bring something different to the table, though Sherry’s little brother definitely does a good job of making me thankful I never had a younger sibling.

Overall it’s an interesting book with a pretty good concept, and I am curious as to what is going to happen in the second one. However to me this fell somewhere around average, I do like it though.