Review: The Storm (The Rain #2) by Virginia Bergin (September Sequel Challenge #4)

First, thanks to Sourcebooks Fire and Edelweiss for allowing me to read an e-galley of this title.  I had been keeping an eye out for this as soon as I knew there would be a sequel to the first book, H2O which I loved.  You can read my review of that first book HERE, if you don't want to have anything spoiled by reading this review.

This one picks up pretty much right about where the last one left off.  It's about 3 months after the rain first came and started killing everyone.  She wasn't able to stay at the military base with Darius Spratt because she wasn't considered useful or essential.  Plus, she got back to her house and saw a note from her dad that he was going to be coming back. So she stayed there waiting for him.  Until finally she gave up.  Well, right about that same time one of her friends shows up at her house.  Ruby finds out that there might be things going on at the military base that aren't as great as they seem.  Like maybe they're testing on people.  They decide to go looking for Ruby's dad and younger brother.  Their search takes them back to many places they'd been before.  One of the places was basically a party, and when they get there, things get a little weirder than before. At one point her friend falls into the water, and the only thing they know to do is chop off her foot.  But then Ruby thinks the only thing to do is take her to the army camp for medical attention.  Once they get back, things change.  Ruby does something that makes her of interest to the scientists there, even as she finds out they are really doing something to the kids.  She has a reunion with Darius, at least until the scientists find something about her may be immune to the rain.  After she is tested, and poked, and prodded, to the point where she just doesn't care anymore, she escapes  And then she runs to her grandmother's house, and finally finds her father.  The family reunion won't be quite what she had hoped for or expected, although her father will be just the way she remembered him.  She will have to try to stay hidden from the military, as they want whatever it is about her that might be a cure. 

It is this that we will end the story with, at least trying to know where the world can go with what they know about Ruby and her immunity.  And she will have to determine who in her family she can still be with.  And what does Darius have over her, is she really attracted to this nerd that she would never have been seen with before this all began?

I still enjoyed Ruby's narrative.  I really feel like her banter is just like a teenager.  It's told just like a diary might be done in real life, at least to me.  A great sequel to the first book, and definitely a recommended read!

Waiting on Wednesday: The Storm (The Rain #2) by Virginia Bergin

Waiting on Wednesday is a weekly event hosted by Jill at Breaking the Spine where we spotlight upcoming releases that we're eagerly awaiting.  My choice this week is the sequel to a book I read and enjoyed last year.  It was called H20 then, but is now called The Rain I guess.  I believe the egalley is available on either Netgalley or Edelweiss now as well.  So I will have to get it.  Here is the blurb on the sequel from Goodreads:

"I'll tell you a weird thing about apocalypses - a thing I didn't even know until I was in one: they seem pretty bad, don't they? Well, take it from me: they can always get worse."

Three months after the killer rain first fell, Ruby is beginning to realise her father might be dead . . . and that she cannot survive alone. When a chance encounter lands her back in the army camp, Ruby thinks she is safe - at a price. Being forced to live with Darius Spratt is bad enough, but if Ruby wants to stay she must keep her eyes - and her mouth - shut. It's not going to happen. When she realizes what is going on - the army is trying to find a cure by experimenting on human subjects - Ruby flips out . . . and makes an even more shocking discovery: she's not useless at all. The Storm begins . . .


Sounds so good.  I can't wait to read on and find out  what happens after this big natural disaster.  My only issue is that I loved the cover of the first one when it was called H2O.   

The slipcover actually had holes in it, it was cool!  Not sure this new one matches up.  

Anyway, what about you?  What book are you waiting on this week?

While you're here, make sure to go enter my July New Release giveaway HERE. 

Review H2O by Virginia Bergin

I have to first say thanks to Sourcebooks Fire for allowing me to read an e-galley of this. I even was approved on both Netgalley and Edelweiss.  I guess I didn't realize that I'd asked at both sites, but I did.  And I'm glad I did, because I really enjoyed it.

The main character, our narrator, is Ruby.  I guess you could call Ruby one of the "popular" kids.  And Ruby is at a party, kissing her crush, Caspar, in a hot tub.  They're at her friend Zak's house, kind of a farmhouse out in the country, in England. Zak's parents are pretty cool, kind of hippies, as they've left the kids out there for their party, allowed them to have alcohol, and then don't bug them about it.  But on this night, while Ruby is in the hot tub in her underwear kissing Caspar, Zak's parents come running out and usher them all inside, no time to grab their belongings out of the barn or get dressed.  There's a rainstorm coming.  But it's in England, so big whoop, right?  Well it turns out that one of Zak's father's friends has given him a heads up about this rain.  You see, a long time ago, when Ruby was a very young girl, there was a giant asteroid heading towards Earth.  The scientists were able to completely destroy it before it hit the Earth.  But because Ruby and her friends don't really remember that, it's never been that big of a deal to them.  Until this night.  When it turns out that inside that asteroid, there had been a type of bacteria that was able to live in extreme conditions, like the ones that live at the bottom of the ocean near thermal vents.  So it survived in space, and it survived in the dust and rocks that did come through the Earth's atmosphere, and now it was in the rain that was coming. 

Everyone is kind of thinking the parents are being a little overprotective with making them all stay inside.  Even with the stuff that is getting broadcast on the radio.  So Caspar sneaks outside to grab his ipod and cell phone when no one but Ruby is looking.  But when he comes in, he doesn't seem to be feeling well.  He starts coughing, and soon is scratching his skin and bleeding.  Zak's dad says it isn't safe to leave, even though Zak's mom says they have to get Caspar to the hospital for help.  Everyone else is having tea and coffee to try to sober up from all the alcohol they've had.  Zak's mom wraps Caspar up to try not to touch him, and runs him to the car.  Ruby runs out with them to go to the hospital she thinks.  But Caspar dies on the way, and it seems that now Zak's mom might be sick from having touched him.  So she drops Ruby off at her own house, and she runs up, but under an umbrella to stay out of the rain.  But when Ruby gets to the front door, her stepdad Simon won't let her in at first.  He knows what is going on, and is trying to protect himself, as well as Ruby's mother and baby brother. Eventually he lets her in, but sticks her in the den, locks her in.  The rain keeps coming, and a neighbor even comes and knocks on the door asking for help, but Simon refuses to let her in, again to keep his family safe.  Ruby's mom throws some pain reliever stuff out the window to the neighbor.  Which may in itself be a fatal mistake.  When Ruby wakes up in the morning, the whole world will have changed.  She will have to survive with her family, and maybe eventually on her own when she tries to go find her read dad in London.  And more is learned as she tries to live without water, Simon is smart enough to know that the tap water is going to be contaminated, and that probably saves their lives.  But besides the water with the killer bacteria, there will also be people that are dangerous out there.

This was a very good story, told from the beginning of the "apocalypse" or "plague," whatever you want to call this.  Ruby's narration is a fun one, definitely like I would think a teen would talk/write.  I love that the science in this is mostly realistic. Although I really doubt that something that affected humans the way this does, wouldn't also affect the animals around as well.  But that's just my thought.  I really was kept involved in the story the whole way through.  It was hard to put it down because it was so minute by minute, and I didn't know exactly what would happen.  Would they get to where the army was and everything would be okay?  Or would it be like the camps I'd read about in other apocalyptic books like Ashfall by Mike Mullin?  I had to know how it would end.  And I'm not sure how I feel about the ending though.  I almost want more, but I can see why it ended that way.  So a good, edge of your seat read, for anyone who enjoys apocalyptic YA novels.

The Friday 56 #11

I am so close to being done, well, over 100 pages that is, with my latest book, but not quite ready to review.  So, once again this week I'm going to participate in Friday 56, sponsored by Freda's Voice.  Here are the rules:

Rules:

*Grab a book, any book.
*Turn to page 56 or 56% in your eReader
 *Find any sentence, (or few, just don't spoil it) that grabs you.
*Post it.
*Add your (url) post below in Linky. Add the post url, not your blog url. It's that simple.

So here is mine for the week:

"The house was so quiet I didn't expect anyone to be there.  Simon was at the table.  Except for the stove and the table, ever surface in that kitchen - and some of the floor - was covered with some kind of container, all of them filled with water.  That was weird, but I didn't want to go there.  I saw; I did not want to discuss."

That doesn't quite tell what the story is actually about, but it definitely is a good quote to go with the title of the book.  

 

#TackleTBR Read-a-thon Update for Thursday, September 11th

I haven't been doing so well with this so far.  You can go see my goals on my original post HERE.  But since I don't have a review to do today, I thought I'd go ahead and do a quick update.

So far:

Today I'm reading H2O by Virginia Bergin.  Which is not on my TBR "pile" but is an e-galley that I need to read before it expires, and because I asked for it, so I need to read them, so I guess they kind of fit the TBR theme.
I doubt I'll finish it today, but probably by tomorrow in order to do a review.
So far the only book I've finished during this read-a-thon was Unravel Me by Tahereh Mafi.  And while it wasn't actually "my" book, I checked it out from the library, it fits this as it is one I was meaning to get read.  And it fits my September is for Sequels Challenge.  (Which you can still enter if you want to participate by clicking on the link in the last sentence.)

How are you doing on your read-a-thons or challenges this week?