Z for Zachariah

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Robert C. O’Brien: Z for Zachariah (2015, Simon Pulse)

249 pages

English language

Published Nov. 20, 2015 by Simon Pulse.

ISBN:
978-1-4814-6664-6
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OCLC Number:
913924864

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5 stars (1 review)

The post-apocalyptic tale of one girl's efforts to survive alone in a devastated town-and what happens when a mysterious stranger appears-from Newbery Award-winning author, Robert C. O'Brien, is now a major motion picture starring Margot Robbie, Chris Pine, and Chiwetel Ejiofor! Ann Burden is completely alone. The world as she once knew it is gone, ravaged by a nuclear war that has taken everyone from her. For the past year, she has lived in a remote valley with no evidence of any other survivors. But the smoke from a distant campfire shatters Ann's solitude. Someone else is still alive and making his way toward the valley. Who is this man? What does he want? Can he be trusted? Both excited and terrified, Ann soon realizes there may be worse things than being the last person on Earth.

19 editions

A standout in the post-apocalypse genre

5 stars

They might be the last man and last woman on earth. He turns out to be a psychopathic rapist, she starts out naive, but ends up being a badass 16-year old warrior who outsmarts him and leaves him weeping by the roadside, getting exactly what he deserves. More than 50 years on, it seems like a fair representation of humanity and they way we treat each other.

I love the biblical allusions, the way the nuclear apocalypse provides the setting, but the story is all inside the mind of the protagonist Ann. Through her, O'Brien tells a gripping tale. I think this is the third time I've read it since discovering it in the 1980s, and it always keeps me awake at night, heart racing, until I turn the last page.

Subjects

  • Teenage girls
  • Juvenile fiction
  • Nuclear warfare
  • Social aspects
  • Fiction
  • End of the world
  • Survival

Places

  • United States