Eat, Read, and Be Mommy

My friend Andrea picked Jennifer A. Nielsen’s The Scourge for book club a few months ago, and this week the stars finally aligned for me to listen to the audiobook. (I wasn’t as enthusiastic about the plot at first, it being less my thing, but Andrea’s a pretty good judge of what I’m likely to enjoy anyway if I push through.) I admit, I was impatient to get past the one plot point that was making me crazy–purely in an “I’m an adult and I can see what’s coming and these are only kids but I just want them to FIGURE IT OUT already” kind of way–but once the book got there, it was an enjoyably adventurous ride from then on out. If you combine the idea of a leper colony with a country of unfair class systems and a suspicious government, adding to it a “only we know the truth and now we have to bring people together and save everyone and banter while we do it” sort of arc, you get a pretty solid idea of Scourge. Even not being my thing, it kept me reading (especially after the first third or so); I think its audience ought to love it. In the meantime, I’m going to return the audiobook and move on to the next book on my list!