The Eleventh Plague

By: Jeff Hirsch

Narrated by: Dan Bittner

Length: 6 hrs and 58 mins

Publisher's Summary

In the aftermath of a war, America’s landscape has been ravaged and two-thirds of the population left dead from influenza. Fifteen-year-old Stephen Quinn and his family were among the few that survived. But when Stephen’s grandfather dies and his father falls into a coma, Stephen finds his way to Settler’s Landing, a community that seems too good to be true. There he meets strong, defiant, mischievous Jenny. When they play a prank on the town bully’s family that goes horribly wrong, they find themselves in the midst of a battle that will change Settler’s Landing forever.

©2011 Jeff Hirsch (P)2011 Scholastic Audio

Decent if somewhat formulaic YA novel

Post-Apocalypse? Check.
Love interest? Check
Villains? Double check.
Gritty universe full of difficult choices? Ehhhhh...
It is obviously aimed at Young Adults so Cormack McCarthy's The Road this is not.
It felt like the story could have been deeper and that there were some missed opportunities to stand out from the crowd of similar books. The characters never really had to do anything to far outside their moral codes.
In some ways a zombie story without zombies.
Great narration/performance.
Fair to good story.

Good story

I thought The Eleventh Plague was a great book. The main character, Stephen, lived all his life as a scavenger, picking up and selling salvage left over after a horrific war that left the world pretty desolate. He's surprised when he stumbles across a functioning, intact community, with people eating regularly, kids going to school, and generally rebuilding life. It was more of a subdivision, but considering the rest of the world was in disarray, this little gated neighborhood was practically a borough. Stephen is welcomed by most of the community, but the most powerful family doesn't want strangers and makes things hard for Stephen. Not wanting to stir up trouble, Stephen decides to leave, but not before pulling a (really stupid) prank on the powerful family -- he actually did it because a girl told him to, not because he wanted to, the dummy. Bad things follow and Stephen runs around trying to fix his mistake.

It was actually pretty good. Jeff Hirsch did a nice job of narrating. No weird voice changes or strange gulping habits.

If you're a fan of dystopian fiction, you should definitely put The Eleventh Plague on your list of good reads.

I Wish Dan Bittner Could Narrate all My Books!

The Eleventh Plague was, to me, as much about trust and loyalty as the aftermath of an apocalyptic event. The audiobook drew me in immediately...thanks to both Hirsch's writing and Bittner's narration, which was fabulous!

The book raising some great questions: How do you reestablish society after it has fallen? What things do you change? And when rebuilding society is such a precious and delicate process, what mistakes will you tolerate from others?

I liked this book

Would you listen to The Eleventh Plague again? Why?

I like a book that has a good story line and good characters

What did you like best about this story?

The characters were great in the story

Which character – as performed by Dan Bittner – was your favorite?

The doctor was my favorite character

Was there a moment in the book that particularly moved you?

No

excellent post-apocalypse character study.

This story takes place in a post-apocalypse America. The main character is a young man, (probably in his middle teens), who has lived a hard life, with a hard and mistrustful grandpa. When the Grandpa dies, he and his injured father take shelter with a community of settlers who are trying to re-build their lives. We watch Steve grow from a selfish, hard-hearted, thieving boy into a social, responsible young man, who learns to fin in with, and help his community. It is a good example of how the human spirit can rise triumphant, even from the worst disaster. There are some sleezeballs in the book, but good is victorious. Dan Bittner has a voice, and narrative style that depicts the teenager very well.

Interesting and thought-provoking

If you could sum up The Eleventh Plague in three words, what would they be?

interesting and thought-provoking

What was one of the most memorable moments of The Eleventh Plague?

hard to say...

What does Dan Bittner bring to the story that you wouldn???t experience if you just read the book?

the youthful voice of the narrator as the main character brought life to the story

If you were to make a film of this book, what would be the tag line be?

What our future might be...

Any additional comments?

Although there were a few hokey dialogs, the story was intriguing. I thought the title was misleading because the plague itself is not a main element of the story; it is the aftermath that froms the basis of the story. I would have liked the story to be a bit longer; therre were many areas I would have loved to have seen developed a bit more. Nonetheless, I really enjoyed the book.

Good YA Dystopian Novel

Standard dystopian fare with good narrator and production values. I highly recommend this for teens, however if you’re older than 21 you might want to stay away. It is definitely written for a younger crowd.

very good book

this is one of the few books I would listen to again or pick up and read.

Will keep you listening.

This is a good story. It will keep you listening as it has some exciting parts.

A journey

I started to read this book when I was a freshman in highschool to meet the required pages for a class, but to never actually read anything past the first chapter. However, four years have past and I still remembered everything I read about the book back then, and I had a free book to choose from on this app. I decided to go with this because even if it's been 4 years almost 5 I still had to finish something I started, it's just how I am, and I'm so glad and happy to have finally after all this time to finish the book. I'm just sad it took this long and that's it's actually over. But an enjoyable book either way, that I would recommend to anyone wanting to sit back and live in a different world for a while.