The Eleventh Plague Review

The Eleventh Plague by Jeff Hirsch
Sometimes the only way to survive is to keep moving. America is a vast, desolate landscape left ravaged after a brutal war. Two-thirds of the population are dead from a vicious strain of Influenza. People called the sickness The Eleventh Plague.
Fifteen year old Stephen Quinn was born after the war and only knows the life of a salvage. His family was among the few who survived and took to roaming the country in search of matrtial to trade. But when Stephen’s grandfather dies and his father falls into a coma after an accident, Stephen finds his way to Settler’s Landing, a community that seems too food to be true. There Stephen meets strong, defiant, mischievous Jenny, who refuses to accept things as they are. When they play a prand that goes horribly wrong, chaos erupts, and they find themselves in the midst of a battle that will change Settler’s Landing and their lives forever.

I rated this book 3 out of 5 stars

The first reason that I picked this book up was because of the cool cover. The ferris wheel looks like it came out of Chernobyl. The other reason was because it was indorsed by Suzanne Collins, you cant go wrong with that, right?

I wanted to love this book but it was just an okay read. It started off great with Stephen and his dad scavaging for supplies to trade but they quickly run into trouble. Stephen being born after the plague never knew what the world was like before. He finds himself in a life and death situation and has to trust strangers. Something he has never had to do before, since his grandfather trusted no one before his death.

He slowly settles into life at Settler’s Landing and even finds a love interest in Jenny Tan, who like Stephen, does not know her place in this dystopian world either. A prank goes terribly wrong and they must decide to stay and fight for a home they don’t fit in or run and risk the lives of the people who care about them.

The book just drags on from here. By the end I didn’t care what happened, I just wanted it to end. The fighting scenes dragged on and on. I am giving it 3 stars because it was well written. The main characters were great and I liked them.