Night of the Purple Moon by Scott Cramer

Last week my sister and I were having one of our daily book conversations and she mentioned that she was sent a request to review a book. After reading a short synopsis she thought it might be a book that was more up my genre ally than hers...low and behold....It was!...well sort of. Let me show you what I mean.....

“Puberty was a ticking time bomb planted in each and every teen. The older you were the louder and faster it ticked...”

 A few months ago Abby moved with her Dad and younger brother and sister to a small fishing island off the coast of Maine. She was looking forward to the weekend when she would be able to see her Mom, following what was predicted to be the meteorological event of the century!

That night the the Earth would be making it's first pass through the tail of the Rudenko- Kasparov comet. It was expected to be a spectacular show, covering the entire atmosphere with harmless space dust and turn the moon a beautiful shade of purple. Unfortunately it did a lot more than that....

When she woke up the following morning Abby and her siblings discovered that not only was the space dust harmful but it had silently killed almost every single adult and older pubescent teenager on the planet. (seriously, all gone) 

Now, at the ripe old age of 13 she is one of the oldest children on the island it fell to her to try to keep not only herself and her siblings alive but the rest of the younger children on the island as well. That is at least until they could find a cure or they hit puberty and succumb to the space dust...which ever comes first.

My first opinion....

Stephen King's: The Stand meets William Golding's: Lord of the Flies.....with a twist.

As a mother of young children Mr. Cramer has managed to captured one of my greatest fears. That one day my children will wake up and find that my husband and I have died in our sleep. How will they survive?Who will take care of them? Not to mention when they were really little, how do they even get out of the house seeing as that they can't open the doors yet? These were questions that would keep me up at night.

And while the writing was excellent.... It flowed well and I understood everything without confusion or inconsistency. I must say as a mother, I really didn't like this story. It scared the crap out of me!

....which leads me to.......

My Second Opinion.....

Stephen King's: The Stand still meets William Golding's: Lord of the Flies.....but from a different perspective.......and still with a twist.

As I went through this book I realized that if I was going to finish it I had to try to hang up my “Mommy” cape but keep on my “Nerdy” boots and then mentally dig deep into my past before I had kids. Back to a time where I liked thrillers and watching movies with just this sort of thing....Hey, I like The Stand so why couldn't I like this? ( I never really liked Lord of the Flies, but then again, I doubt it was meant to be a “likeable” book. It was meant to teach you a lesson. Sort of like this one)..... And so looking at it from that perspective I found that as Sci-Fi Apocalyptic Underdog stories go.... It was pretty darn good! :D

After a while you almost tend to forget that the main characters were not adults but children and that makes the weight of their survival even more important. It shows the good and the bad in human nature. It showed how society has a choice even at a young age to either work together for the good of everyone or go savage and run rampant and just destroy until there is nothing left to save.

It also makes me realize that we need to be teaching our children how to be more self reliant. If it hadn't been for a few of the kids knowing basic survival skills and how to do real work they wouldn't have survived for long.

This story also reminded me about how we as a society need to value life. No matter how long or short it is. We need to tell those around us how much we love and care about them because for all you know they may not be there in the morning....now if you 'll excuse me, I'm going to go teach my 3 year old how to start a bond fire with some twigs and a tampon.

If you are interesting in reading this ebook you can find it at Amazon.com right HERE for $2.99 or if you are one of the elite and have a Prime account it's FREE.