Mayfly by Jeff Sweat

Jemma has spent her life scavenging tools and supplies for her tribe in their small enclave outside what used to be a big city. Now she's a teen, and old enough to become a Mama. Making babies is how her people survive - In Jemma's world, life ends at age seventeen.

Survival has eclipsed love ever since the Parents died of a mysterious plague. But Jemma's connection to a boy named Apple is stronger than her duty as a Mama. Forced to leave, Jemma and Apple are joined in exile by a mysterious boy who claims to know what is causing them to die. The world around them, and their time is running out. Is this truly the End? 

Review

This book was AWESOME! I loved it! 

It is set in a post apokoliptic world (yeah, I know that's not how you spell it. Read the book!), where there are no adults, and everyone dies when they turn 17. In Jemma's group, girls rule, boys are only kept around for necessities, and when a girl turns 15, she must become a Mama to help populate the next generation. 

If you've read the Gone series by Michael Grant, which was also awesome, you might find a few similarities (minus all the talk about baby making).  However, in Gone, the adults disappear in the first book, and the kids have to figure out how to live without them. In Mayfly, the adults have been gone for quite some time, and the kids have their own culture and systems set in place, with jobs for everyine, starting from a very young age. Also, everyone dies at 17, which is a total bummer! It also, as you might expect, leads to some interesting plot lines.

I ❤Jemma and Apple, but Pico is my favorite! Also even though this book touches on some pretty heavy topics (like rape), there is also humor sprinkled throughout the book. 

This is Jeff Sweat's debut, and I can't wait to see what he does next. Hopefully, he writes a sequel, although there is no info on GoodReads about one, yet. 😞 

I received a copy of this book from the publishers, via NetGalley, in exchange for an honest review. 

Ninth City Burning by J. Patrick Black (A Review)

Centeries of war with aliens threaten the future of human civilization on earth in this gripping, epic science fiction debut...

We never saw them coming.

Entire cities disappeared in the blink of an eye, leaving nothing but dust and rubble.

When an alien race came to make Earth theirs, they brought with them a weapon we had no way to fight, a universe-altering force known as thelemity. It seemed nothing could stop it--until we discovered we could wield the power too.

Five hundred years later, the Earth is locked in a grinding war of attrition. The talented few capable of bending thelimity to their will are trained in elite military academies, destined for the front lines. Those who refused to support the war have been exiled to the wilds of a ruined Earth.

But the enemy's tactics are changing, and Earth's defenders are about to discover this centuries-old war has only just begun. As a terrible new onslaught looms, heroes will rise from unlikely quarters, and fight back.

I must start off by saying that I was really surprised how long it took me to read this book. I usually get through books pretty quickly, but this one took me 5 or 6 nights instead of my normal 2 or 3. It was a little slow, but not boring, slow. There is just a whole lot of world building, but this definitely adds to the story.

So, by day 5, I was ready to finish it up, but I wasn't upset that I still had another few chapters to read on day 6. It was a really good book.

The author does a great job of weaving a few very different POVs in throughout the book. This is what makes it a little slow. Each character has a completely different life at the beginning, some in completely different settings (and almost different worlds). So, when I say there is a lot of world-building, it's not necessarily just one world. He did a great job of making it not boring, though.

I saw a couple of reviews that said this book was too slow and featured too many characters and POVs. I don't think so, though. I think the author just wanted to make sure all the world and all its characters were well-established. I think the fact that he did this in Ninth City Burning will definitely contribute to the next book. Even though it might have made this book longer, it will make it a lot easier to jump into the next book, since we already know everything we need to know about Ninth City and its characters.

Looking forward to seeing what happens next with Torro, Naomi, Jax, Rae, Venn, Kez and everybody else! I'll definitely read the sequel!

I received this book from the publishers, via First to Read, in exchange for my honest opinion.

Check out my GoodReads review!