I finished this book yesterday. It reads fast and is one of the most character driven narratives I've ever read. This story is dramatic and emotional as Cass finds herself abandoned by the one man she trusted enough to love. Her decisions and actions after that are neither logical nor emotionally balanced, but they are completely consistent with her damaged character. As an essentially self-destructive survivor, Cass is a fascinating paradox. She hates herself, is fueled on rage and makes abrupt, often ill-considered, decisions.
I also found Dor, the leader of the trading community in the Box, to be an intriguing and complex character. He turns away from everything he has built at the Box to go after his teenaged daughter who was taken by militant Rebuilders. He is ruled by logic and has built walls around himself, but he can't deny his love for his daughter and/or his attraction to Cass. In many ways he is the opposite of Cass. Like magnets each is attracted to the other.
Words like passionate, dramatic and sensual come to mind when I think of this story. As a reader I was completely caught up in the story as Dor and Cass, with three-year old Ruthie in tow, travel across a zombie and bandit infested landscape to reach the Rebuilder Community at Colima. Their trip was fascinating and visceral but sometimes hard to read. Likewise the latter portion of the book, when Cass uses her femininity to endanger all of them, was compelling but difficult to get through. And, the finish, (when Dor, Cass, Ruthie and others escape the Rebuilders), was superb in terms of action and suspense.
IMO, the only time the book lost forward momentum was the mid-book recounting of the characters' arrival and processing at the Rebuilder community at Colima. IMO, it just took too long for Cass, Dor and Ruthie to be processed and too long for the adults to figure out exactly what was occurring. (After the description of some of the activities at the clinic and the knowledge of mandatory sterilization, I immediately knew what was going on.) But, the characters are bombarded by different stimuli when they get to the Rebuilders and don't twig to what is going on until Dor forcefully questions a Rebuilder. Note, the time spent describing the individual Rebuilders and the operation at Colima was necessary to establish that reality of that post-apocalyptic community, but it just wasn't as compelling to me.
For fans of post-apocalyptic fiction, this one is a definite "must read." I L-O-V-E-D the first book in this projected trilogy, Aftertime – I described it as: "Stephen King’s The Stand in a bra and panties. "
