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The Walking Dead meets Yellowjackets in If We Survive This, a tense and emotional young adult horror novel from award-winning author Racquel Marie about a teen girl leading a group of survivors on a perilous journey during the apocalypse.
Flora Braddock Paz is not the girl who survives. A colorful creative who spends as much time fearing death as she does trying to hide that fear from her loved ones, she's always considered herself weak. But half a year into the global outbreak of a rabies mutation that transforms people into violent, zombielike "rabids," she and her older brother, Cain, are still alive. With their mom dead, their dad missing, and their Los Angeles suburb left desolate, they form a new plan: venture out to the secluded Northern California cabin they vacationed in growing up―their best chance at a safe haven and maybe even seeing their dad again.
The dangers of the world have changed, but so has Flora. Still, their journey up the state is complicated by encounters with familiar faces, hidden truths, new allies, and painful memories of the whole family's final time making this trip the previous year. And for Flora, one thing inevitably remains: No matter how far you run, death is never far behind.
"Marie delves into the genre with resounding success: alternating chapters titled 'Now' and 'Then' juxtapose Flora's life in survival mode with society pre-apocalypse. Introspective portrayals of OCD and steadfast siblinghood combine with standout depictions of classic horror tropes bursting with sci-fi zombie gore in this tightly paced novel." ―Publishers Weekly (starred review)
"An overreliance on genre tropes mars the otherwise fine character work." —Kirkus Reviews
"A bleak, visceral tale that is also intimately personal...this book epitomizes the best of what the [zombie] sub-genre has to offer." —Booklist
"This twisty, painful zombie apocalypse book is truly, at its heart, a love letter: to family. To queer kids. To teens living with mental illness. To facing down a horrible world and surviving it, no matter what. A story that will be reaching readers at exactly the right time." ―Andrew Joseph White, New York Times-bestselling and award-winning author of Compound Fracture
"Unflinching, gory, and tender. Racquel's Marie propulsive first foray into horror takes a post-apocalyptic humanity and reassembles it into a beautiful, but haunting macabre portrait of something worth fighting for, all through the lens of one brave but terrified girl. This book finds its sticking place early and won't let off for a long time yet." ―Joelle Wellington, author of Their Vicious Games & The Blonde Dies First
This information about If We Survive This was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Racquel Marie grew up in Southern California, where her passion for storytelling of all kinds was encouraged by her friends and big family. She received a BA in English with an emphasis in creative writing and a minor in gender and sexuality studies from the University of California, Irvine. There is, unexpectedly, a C in her first name. She is the author of Ophelia After All, You Don't Have a Shot, and This Is Me Trying.
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