ATOM BOMB BABY - Brandon Gillespie

Ashe is a teenage girl wandering a dystopian landscape all alone. Before she was even born, an alien race appeared from another dimension and wiped out nearly the entire planet. To combat the alien Kraal, the military corps chose to 'cleanse' the planet with a blanket of nuclear bombs.

After her family was exiled from the underground shelters and her parents suffered a horrific tragedy, Ashe has chosen to wander, alone, because she doesn't want to put her fate in anyone else's hands. But, starting with a child whom she saves and who now insists on following her everywhere, Ashe slowly begins to connect with others who are rediscovering the planet. 

But the Kraal may not be the only danger, especially for a teenage girl and her ward. Not all survivors are willing to be as open and welcoming as Ashe.

Dystopian worlds with teenagers (particularly teenage girls) are certainly nothing new and author Brandon Gillespie's biggest challenge is to provide the reader with different characters in a different situation. I think that he only partly succeeded.

There's a lot of world-building going on, setting the tone for where we are and what our central character is facing. But because of this I think the book moved very, very slowly. It picks up a little bit as we get further into the book, but it definitely requires some effort to stick with it.

The characters are interesting.  Ashe is really a very good YA heroine, and some of her behavior seems very appropriate for a young teen girl - from wondering about whether or not someone likes her, to not being able to tell the child that he can't stay with her. Sometimes the conversations are a little stilted and come across as just being info dumps.

My biggest problem is a lack of cohesive purpose. This is sort of set up as an 'epic quest' story. Ashe and friends wander, fight, wander, fight. But unlike some of the more classic stories in the genre, I'm not clear on what they are wandering to or what they are looking for. Whatever this goal is (I have a thought but won't share that here as it could reveal too much), but it's not urgent enough to really drive the characters and therefor not urgent enough to drive the reader.

There are many questions left unanswered and I recognize that this is planned to be the beginning of a series, but I really don't like a book that doesn't stand alone as a book.

I'm not sure who the target audience is for this book. I presume it's targeted toward the YA reader and with some of these characters, Middle Grade reader could even be targeted. But I think it's too slow and cumbersome to really energize that market.

Looking for a good book? Atom Bomb Baby by Brandon Gillespie is a dystopian YA with some good characters and a fun concept, but the book spends too much time setting it up and not enough time telling a story.

I received a digital copy of this book from the publisher/author, through LibraryThing, in exchange for an honest review.

3-1/2 stars

* * * * * *

Atom Bomb Baby

author: Brandon Gillespie

publisher: Revenant Creative Studio

ISBN: 9780998749938

paperback, 326 pages

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