Reviews
I am making more of an effort to read books that have been on my wishlist instead of just reading willy-nilly. Z for Zachariah the posthumous post-apocalyptic tale of survival has been on my wishlist longer than anything else. Robert C. O'Brien is best remembered for Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH but I think Z for Zachariah is the stronger book. The book relates in a series of diary entries a teenage girl's life after a nuclear war has poisoned the land and the surviving citizens have been killed by nerve gas. For unknown reasons, her town has been spared but she is late survivor. Z for Zachariah is how Ann sees herself as the last person alive. Zachariah is the last man in an A to Z of Bible names, one of the few books she has in her house. Enter another survivor, scientist John Loomis. Before Loomis the focus was on Ann's ingenuity and on her memories of the war. Loomis an outsider shows first hand the brutality of war both in his recovery from radiation poisoning and in his treatment of Ann. The book holds up well and is as chilling and depressing as any similar book written for an adult audience. It was one of those rare books that left me wanting more when I had finished reading it.
