Title: PODs
Author: Michelle K. Pickett
Publisher: Spencer Hill Press
Acquired Via: Around the World ARC Tours
Release Date: June 4, 2013
Seventeen-year-old Eva is a chosen one. Chosen to live, while others meet a swift and painful death from an incurable virus so lethal, a person is dead within days of symptoms emerging. In the POD system, a series of underground habitats built by the government, she waits with the other chosen for the deadly virus to claim those above. Separated from family and friends, it's in the PODs she meets David. And while true love might not conquer all, it's a balm for the broken soul.
After a year, scientists believe the population has died, and without living hosts, so has the virus. That's the theory, anyway. But when the PODs are opened, survivors find the surface holds a vicious secret. The virus mutated, infecting those left top-side and creating... monsters.
Eva and David hide from the infected in the abandoned PODs. Together they try to build a life--a new beginning. But the infected follow and are relentless in their attacks. Leaving Eva and David to fight for survival, and pray for a cure.
My Review*
Once upon a time there was a book that should have turned me off completely after fifty pages. Its name was PODs. PODs was an interesting little book with teenage naïveté, superviruses, questionable government policy, awful roommates, young love, action, zombies, and cringe-worthy science. Despite the strange formula, I still fell in love with the book.
The main character, Evangeline aka Eva, isn't the perfect character, but she's one that I connected with and cared about though I can't exactly pinpoint why. I shouldn't have liked her, per my inconsistent taste. She was the embodiment of that aforementioned teenage naïveté. Her parents sprung a family game night with no electronics on her when she saw them worrying over something they were watching on television, and she went along with it, despite never having one before. That was her general behavior in the book, but it read more as "go with the flow" than a mindless sheep routine. What I really had trouble with was her treatment of her BFF, Bridget, at the start of the book. It wasn't godawful, but it lingered.