The Things That Keep Us Here
HOW DO YOU PROTECT YOUR FAMILY DURING A NATIONWIDE PANDEMIC?
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- $16.99
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- $16.99
Publisher Description
HOW DO YOU PROTECT YOUR FAMILY DURING A NATIONWIDE PANDEMIC?
'The story of the Brooks family as they face a nationwide pandemic and fight to survive ... what an amazing read' Amazon reviewer 5 stars
Millions are dead. Fear and panic have gripped the nation. An engrossing and emotionally gripping story of one family whose limits are tested to the extreme.
It began with a dead bird. Then state-wide school closure. Before long, the whole town is in lockdown and the Brooks family are quarantined in their own home - with a faceless enemy on their doorstep.
They must cope as best they can, battling hunger, cold and boredom. But as the threat inches closer, and neighbour turns against neighbour, single mother Ann doesn't know who she can trust - including those taking refuge in her house.
With no end in sight, Ann knows that if she is to protect her daughters from untold danger, she must make impossible decisions in order to survive...
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
A timely premise can't quite compensate for structural deficiencies in Buckley's lackluster debut novel. Ann Brooks and her family have anticipated the possibility of pandemic avian flu for months; Ann's estranged husband, Peter, after all, has been researching the mysterious illness at his university research job. When the flu with a near-50% fatality rate closes in on the Columbus, Ohio, home where Ann and her two daughters live, Peter and his exotically beautiful Ph.D. student, Shazia, move in to pool resources, but desperation grows as heat, food and water dwindle, and the threat of death looms (sometimes literally) on their doorstep. Although pseudoscientific reports and news bulletins add to the novel's "ripped from the headlines" feel, emotional revelations are handled less skillfully. A tragedy in Ann and Peter's past, after numerous veiled allusions, is finally revealed in an unsatisfying throwaway in the epilogue. The third-person narration squanders the tensions among Ann, Peter and Shazia, resulting in flat and unsurprising epiphanies. Although Buckley raises important questions about trust, loyalty and forgiveness, the narrative flaws detract from the overall effect.
