Shadows (review)

In this sequel to the nail-biting horror of Ashes (BCCB 10/11), Alex must face the hard truth that the supposedly good people of Rule, a small enclave of those who survived the electromagnetic pulse that killed much of the world's population, are actually feeding the Changed (teenagers who have been transformed into mute cannibals by the same pulse). Elsewhere, Tom has recovered in the wilderness and searches for Alex as he tries to avoid the bounty hunters looking for the Spared; Peter is not so lucky, and ends up in the hands of Finn, whose sadistic experiments might have some utility if he weren't bat-guano crazy. Meanwhile, Chris and Lena have also escaped Rule, but their path through Changed territory is threaded with danger. Bick amps up both the gore and the suspense in an already hair-raising, edgy thriller series, and her prose style has grown even richer, offering imagery that is disturbingly vivid and horrifically, perversely beautiful at times. She also deepens and complicates the motivational base by introducing a fraught history of intergenerational conflict and corruption as well as the possibility that main characters, including Alex and Lena, are still vulnerable to having their status change from Spared to Changed. Readers should be warned to clear their calendars before they pick this up, because they won't be doing much of anything else until they turn the last, cliff-hanging page.