Notes from the End of the World

By: Donna Burgess

Narrated by: Becca Ford

Length: 6 hrs and 7 mins

Publisher's Summary

High school is supposed to be the best years of a girl's life, but when a pandemic breaks out, turning victims into flesh-hungry cannibals, Cindy Scott realizes she's witnessing what may be the end of the world. As the N-Virus spreads, it becomes evident that no family is safe from its wrath. Despite efforts to carry on as normal, society starts to unravel.

Once Cindy's popular sister - Audrey, a senior - is infected, the lives of the Scott family are forever altered. Cindy's father, an ER doctor, manages to acquire a black-market vaccine to slow Audrey's deterioration, but that isn't a cure. It's only delaying the inevitable. Audrey slowly becomes a zombie, yet she is able to maintain awareness.

In fact she is so aware that she fights going to The Pastures, a "living cemetery" where the living dead are taken to wander fields safely, behind the security of electric fences, where they will eventually decay away to dust peacefully.

Cindy's life continues to crumble as everyone she knows and loves succumbs to the effects of the N-Virus. Finally she realizes her only hope is Nick, her longtime crush and fellow survivor.

©2014 Donna Burgess (P)2015 Donna Burgess

Intense storyline, believable characters

For those who enjoy the Walking Dead series and its spinoff Fear the Walking Dead in particular, you might find this novel to be almost like the missing link between the world before and after the existance of zombies in the world. This novel would make a great tv series, not a movie, because of the depth of the characters and the tragedy they each experience would be lost. The novel does a great job at giving us characters with unique experiences as the events are narrated by different povs. I wish the story didn't have such a bleak ending, and it didn't leave me with the feeling there'll be a sequel, which makes all the more tragic the slow decent of humanity to death and decay. My one issue with the audiobook is the narrator. I don't particularly enjoy the narrator's lack of effort, all characters were read in the same manner, even though the story changes pov. The only way you could tell was by the titles of the chapters.

Twist on Zombie book

If you could sum up Notes from the End of the World in three words, what would they be?

It is different from other zombie books, this one is told from teenage Cindys perspective.

Any additional comments?

Pretty good, I enjoyed it.