(Viking Books for Young Readers)
In David Arnold’s new young adult (that adults will also enjoy) post-apocalyptic survival story, a young woman and her dog set out on a quest, “roaming hillsides and ruined cities, foraging for supplies, operating on the fringes, trying to put their little piece of the world back together again.” Swarms of flies, infected with a deadly flu, have decimated the planet, leaving behind small bands of survivors who are trying — each in their own way — to live, to survive, to grow their own food, to build communities in the shadow of the destruction wrought by the apocalypse. Nico and her dog Harry have been sent by Nico’s father to attempt to find a magical portal, navigating the backwoods of New Hampshire, while Kit, a young artist sheltering with a family of their own making, seeks hope and purpose and companions. It’s a timeless story, yet original in this telling, with a fresh, imaginative voice that lends immediacy and plausibility to the narrative. New York Times bestselling author Arnold has created a world where it is possible to imagine a future, where hope itself hasn’t been extinguished, and where human beings look out for one another, as though their own lives depended on it; it’s a genuinely moving book.
— Reviewed by Jenny Lyons of The Vermont Book Shop in Middlebury.
 

10 Young Adult Titles with Adult Appeal
Concrete Rose, by Angie Thomas
The Desolations of Devil’s Acre, by Ransom Riggs
Tales from the Hinterland, by Melissa Albert
Lore, by Alexandra Bracken
Down Comes the Night, by Allison Saft
Into the Heartless Wood, by Joanna Ruth Meyer
Love Is a Revolution, by Renée Watson
The Project, by Courtney Summers
Game Changer, by Neal Shusterman
Winterkeep, by Kristin Cashore