A Matter of Days

In the novel A Matter of Days, Amber Kizer tells an exciting and suspenseful survival story filled with difficult choices and practical survival techniques.  From page one, Kizer hooked me into the world of destruction and deprivation of the BluStar pandemic, a deadly disease. Nadia and Rabbit, the two main characters, survived the pandemic, but unfortunately, their mother died.  Their uncle, Bean, a disease specialist, snuck them shots which contained the cure for BluStar.  Bean told Nadia and Rabbit that on day fifty six of the plague, they should gather the materials they would need to survive and travel from their home in Seattle to West Virginia to meet him and their grandfather.  Kizer takes the reader through Nadia’s and Rabbit’s epic journey to the east while meeting several new characters and many interesting plot twists.  One of the new characters they meet during their journey is an injured dog.  Nadia and Rabbit decided to keep the dog and nurse the dog back to health.  They named it Teotwawki, which means “The end of the world as we know it.”

Before the plague started, Nadia’s and Rabbit’s dad always gave them lessons to “be the cockroach.” This meant to adapt and survive whatever came their way, and was  the theme of the book.  Nadia and Rabbit referred to this saying whenever they were in trouble or in a difficult situation.  Nadia used the saying on page 255.  “Come on, Nadia, think.  Be the cockroach, what have we learned?” She said this right after the group got raided.  The author makes the reader ache for Nadia and Rabbit and gives the feeling of losing everything and starting all over.  A Matter of Days intrigued me from the beginning to the end.  It is perfect story for people who like action, adventure, and fighting for survival.  The author’s vivid descriptions of the setting around Rabbit and Nadia made me feel as if I was with them through the whole journey.  If you like books such as The Maze Runner, The Darkest Path, or The Hunger Games, you can’t go wrong with this book.

 

Author ; Amber Kizer

Genre ; post-apocalypse