carolesrandomlife

This review can also be found at Carole's Random Life in Books.

This was good. Really good. I have had this book for years but for some reason, I never got around to reading it. I should not have waited so long because this book is fantastic. I was hooked by this story right away and there was never a dull moment. I listened to this book every spare moment that I could find and really enjoyed the experience.

I probably read this book's summary back when it was released but I went into this book with no idea what it was about. Based on the title, I thought it was about a fireman. There is a fireman in the book but this story is really about a whole lot more than that. This story follows Harper, a nurse, as the world tries to deal with the new outbreak everyone is calling Dragonscale. People with Dragonscale seem to spontaneously burst into flames killing themselves and endangering those around them.

I do enjoy a good end of the world story and I appreciated the fact that this one is a little different than anything I have read before. The Dragonscale is dangerous and people are scared and some are taking things into their own hands. When Harper is infected, she must fight for her life and ends up finding her way to a community filled with others like her. She doesn't do it alone though. She has help from the fireman.

This book took me on quite the journey. At the start, I was really curious about this new illness and was kind of mesmerized by how it was described. I loved seeing how the world was dealing with the situation at the hospital and in the world. I understood Harper's need to survive and keep going. The community she found was fantastic until it wasn't. I found the community's changing dynamics to be very well done. There was plenty of action and things that really couldn't be explained that kept the story really interesting.

Kate Mulgrew did a fantastic job with the narration of this book. She was able to handle a large cast of characters incredibly well. Each character had a very distinctive voice and I felt a lot of emotion in her reading. She has a very pleasant voice and I thought that she read the story at a perfect pace. I found this book easy to listen to for hours at a time. I think that her performance increased my enjoyment of the novel.

I would recommend this book to others. This was an epic story filled with great characters and a lot of excitement. I am so glad that I finally decided to pick this one up and cannot wait to read more of Joe Hill's work.

I received a digital review copy of this book from William Morrow via Edelweiss and borrowed a copy of the audiobook from my local library via Hoopla.

Initial Thoughts
I had a great time with this one. It has been so long since I added this book to my pile that I completely forgot what it was supposed to be about which I think ended up being a rather nice surprise. It is one heck of a story that takes the reader on a journey that covers a whole lot of ground. Kate Mulgrew did an amazing job with the narration.