the compound

REPORT CARD

bff charm: yay
swoonworthy scale: 2
talky talk: post apocoterrific
bonus factors: a compound! crazy father
relationship status: whirlwind romance

the deal:

Eli and his family have been living in an underground compound ever since the BOMBS were dropped.  Six years ago.  Lucky for them, Eli’s dad had prepared so well.  The family is safe.  Except not all of them made it in.  Eli’s twin brother and grandmother got separated from the rest of the family on that fateful night, and only after the door was sealed did they realize it.  Now Eli and his two sisters feel suffocated by their daily routines in the compound, and he’s afraid they’re all going a little stir-crazy.  Then things begin falling apart with their father’s carefully constructed plans, and Eli begins to question not only their father, but their existence underground.

bff charm: yay!

I have to admit, I kind of have a crush on Eli.  His sadness and self-loathing over the loss of his brother is kind of heart-rending.  I wanted to sit him down and discuss his whole tough-guy, mean brother act… and maybe make out a little.  As he began to piece some of the mysteries surrounding him together and started acting more like the person he wanted to be, I found myself rather proud of him.

swoonworthy scale: 2

So there’s no romance in this book, but it gets 2 points just for Eli himself being worthy of swoon.

talky talk: post apocoterrific

S.A. Bodeen does NOT mess around.  This book is heart-poundingly intense. There are so many ‘oh no, you didn’t! oh, you did!’ moments, and they keep building to epic proportions.  This is not a book for the faint of heart.  Ms. Bodeen took two parts Cormac McCarthy, two parts The Mosquito Coast, stirred well, and came out with a fantastic story.  The zenith left me short of breath, and then she gave a little bit of the eerie.

bonus factors: a compound!

I mean, come on, a compound!  When I was a kid during the Cold War, my parents kept the basement stocked with jugs of water and canned food, and my dad would talk about what we were supposed to do if the Russians dropped the bomb.  In retrospect, I don’t think our basement was really radiation proof.  Anyway, THIS compound is almost kind of awesome. Three stories underground with all the amenities, including livestock and hydroponics, what?!  It  actually doesn’t seem so bad, until things start going wrong, and Ms. Bodeen drops a bomb of another sort.

bonus factor: crazy father

This book will make you appreciate your own dad, because I can pretty much guarantee he isn’t nearly as crazy as Eli’s pop.  Just when you think he can’t get any crazier, something else unravels and he DOES.

casting call:

thomas dekker as eli

I kind of miss this guy as John Connor.  He can def. handle the self-loathing, brooding hero bit.

relationship status: whirlwind romance

This book and I won’t be skipping down the isle hand in hand. This is the kind of book that you meet on vacation in Paris and have a heart thumping, crazy whirlwind of a romance, and it’s over too soon. We didn’t have a bad breakup, or anything so dramatic as that.  We just had to move on. However, if we’re ever in the same town again, I’m sure our passion will rekindle.

Tagged as: about a boy, nuclear war