Book Review: Z for Zachariah

So lately I had taken a bit of time off of reading for some reason, mostly because of TV series that I was really into. I had this short paperback sitting in my house for a few days and didn't really pay it much attention until the guy who lent it to me told me that it was part of the inspiration for the Fallout videogames, which is one of the only long videogames that I have played all the way through to the finish in the one that was called New Vegas. That was probably quite some time ago though, wasn't it?

For people out there that don't like complicated reads or books that are too flowery with their vague description of things that are taking place (I am one of those people) this might be a very easy read for you. I say this because it is a narrative and the words that are shown are words that are meant to be easily understood by a 16 year old girl who has spent much of her life without education because the world devolved into nuclear war and basically everyone but her was killed. She has no way of confirming this but all she knows is that the radios went dead years ago, and everyone that left their little hamlet never returned.

She is ignorant about radiation, as I would say most people are, but she has lived a farm life and knows that you don't drink water from the lake that all the fish are dead in. Seems simple enough, right?

She knows how far she can travel in certain directions without harm because of past experience about people who traveled beyond that point and never returned. She has no knowledge of scientific information or theories, but she is far from a simpleton.

She has spent a ton of time living alone and has resigned herself to that being the case forevermore until one day she spots something moving in the distance and notices a man in a suit dragging a cart.

She hides from him but because her space is the only space that has any greenery, he ends up stopping there anyway. The rest of the story is about how she ends up interacting with a man, who has the only radiation-proof suit that exists in the world, and a very informed knowledge of how the plague that has eliminated the world's population actually functions.

I'm not going to spoil it from there but let's just say that this isn't exactly a love story, although it does at times have something like that happening.

The really cool thing about this book is that the author died before it was published and his wife and daughter completed the story for him based on notes that he had taken before he died. I think this is somewhat evident in how the book ends rather abruptly, much like the life of Robert C O'Brien - whose real name is actually Robert Conly - who died when he was merely 55 years old of a heart attack.

This book is only about 200 pages long and I found it extremely easy to read. The chapters are short in length and every chapter ends on some sort of mild cliffhanger that kind of encourages you to read on anyway. It kept me up a few nights especially the last one when I only had about 20 pages left to get through.

If you enjoy science fiction, especially the plausible kind that is sort of based in reality and in no way involves spaceships and aliens, this might be a good one for you to check out. I was done with it in just 4 days so for someone that can read quickly, this might be a book you could do in just one sitting.

For me I was really happy that my friend had this because while I do have a Kindle I prefer reading actual books if I can. This can be a real problem in South East Asia because people don't really read books anymore and if they do have them for sale, the options in English are normally very limited.

This book was turned into a movie, but I am guessing it wasn't very good because I was completely unaware of its existence. I'm gonna download it today and check it out.

This book was one of the best of its type that I have ever read and it is really rare for me to tear though a book this quickly. Therefore I recommend it.