Two years after the world ended, seventeen-year-old Alex has learned three rules: trust nobody, keep moving, never let your guard down. There is a fourth he has never written down, because writing it down would make it true. He almost never meets anyone his own age. The teenagers are gone. Not buried, not mourned — gone, in a way nobody in the wasteland will explain. Alex tells himself it's a bitter joke. The last teen on Earth. It stops being a joke the day he learns where they all went. When a broadcast on the emergency channel promises a safe zone, Alex follows it south to a settlement with a sign reading SECTOR 12 — and finds a shed, a crate, a ledger of names, and the one clue that says his younger sister Mia may still be alive. Nine weeks ago. Maybe. The mutated predators are not the worst thing out there. Neither are the raiders. The worst thing is a man with a recording, a set of walls, and the patience to let hungry people walk to him. What's inside: A lean, fast-moving survival thriller told in nine parts, each opening with Alex's Survivor's Log — filter status, water, distance, and one hard-won rule A hero who has to decide, over and over, what he will not trade away to survive Injuries that behave like injuries and treatment that takes the time treatment takes, written by a practising physician No profanity, no explicit content, no gore for its own sake — safe for a younger reader's shelf, sharp enough for an older one A found family worth fighting for: Jenna, Sam, old Marshall, and a sister who refuses to be carried An ending that closes the door on Sector 12 and opens one to the north Perfect for fans of Michael Grant's Gone, Rick Yancey's The 5th Wave, Emmy Laybourne's Monument 14, Kass Morgan's The 100, and readers who came to dystopian fiction through The Hunger Games and want the next thing that moves this fast. What readers are saying: "A clean, exciting adventure for middle to high school aged kids… with a few twists and written in an interesting format, this book keeps you wanting to read until the end." — Jenn Childers. "Fast paced, action packed, and full of danger… all of the content you need for a good post-apocalyptic read, but without being overbearing or containing anything explicit. It is a book I would not mind being on my daughter's shelf." — Leslie, 5 stars "Great for kids. Cute book." — KAnna Baker, 5 stars About the author: Dr. Rabea Hadi is a board-certified family physician who writes full-length novels and educational nonfiction for young readers and adults. Years of clinical practice, and of training the physicians who came after him, taught him something he has never been able to put down: people survive on stories almost as reliably as they survive on treatment. His fiction is built around characters who have to decide what they will not trade away, and the clinical eye shows up on the page whether he intends it or not. The wasteland is quiet, and the quiet is not free here.
