Note to self: always read everything H.E. Edgmon writes.

I'm not typically a fan of post-apocalyptic stories, because they make me SO anxious. But I've loved what I've read from H.E. Edgmon previously, so I still wanted to give this a try, and I'm so glad I did.

This is pretty brutal for a middlegrade novel, but it's also full of heart and hope. Millie and Rose were both very different and have very different ways of coping with what's happening to them, which was interesting to read and I think will help  middlegrade readers understand that people respond to similar situations differently and that's okay. I absolutely loved the Lost Boys, particularly Ben, and the story became so much more hopeful once Millie and Rose met them.

This isn't quite 5 stars for me, though, because I was honestly expecting a little more from this. I felt like the ending was a little rushed, and this book didn't do much that felt inventive to me - I feel like it's a fairly standard post-apocalyptic story.