Book #4 Emmy Laybourne’s Monument 14

I didn’t want to like this book because it’s yet another post-apocalyptic novel, but I finished it and I will probably read the sequel. Monument 14 is reminiscent of Gone and Alas, Babylon in that readers get some of the details behind the catastrophe(s) and daily survival strategies (unlike in How I Live Now which doesn’t seem like a fair comparison as M14 is longer).

Here’s the summary: Dean, his brother Alex, and 12 other children ranging from elementary to high school find themselves trapped in a supermarket after being caught in a deadly hail storm. They must work together to battle the dangers inside and outside of the supermarket.

What I liked about this book—Laybourne manages to make the reader familiar with a large cast and develops many of their personalities without relying on stock characterizations, she uses a lot of the “show, not tell” approach. I like that it’s told from Dean’s point of view (I think every novel I’ve read thus far is in first person). I like that it’s not told in a journal-type format. For a while there, it seemed like every novel I read was written as a diary and that might have been okay for this story, but I like that it’s not.

It must be hard to find a refreshing approach for a popular plot in young adult and adult fiction, and Monument 14 sort of reminds me of a Stephen King book for younger readers (but not as young as Emery). Or a plot for a television mini-series.

What’s your favorite post-apocalyptic novel?