April 11, 2012

Review: Tomorrow Land by Mari Mancusi

Tomorrow Land by Mari Mancusi
Published March 8, 2012 by NLA Digital

Can true love survive the end of the world?
Imagine finding your first love, only to be ripped apart by the apocalypse. Peyton Anderson will never forget the day she was forced to make a choice--between her family--and Chris Parker, the boy she'd given her heart. Now, four years later, as she steps from the fallout shelter and into a dead and broken world, he's the only thing on her mind.
All Chris "Chase" Parker wanted was to take Peyton away and keep her safe from harm. But he waited for hours in the rain on judgment day and she never showed--breaking his heart without ever telling him why.
Now the two of them have been thrown together once again, reluctant chaperones to a group of orphan children in a post-apocalyptic world where the dead still walk...and feed. As they begin their pilgramage to the last human outpost on Earth, can they find a way to let go of old hurts and find the love they lost--all while attempting to save what's left of the human race?

I have severely mixed feelings on Tomorrow Land. I really enjoyed reading it, but when I actually thought about the book, I found a lot of problems that I just couldn’t ignore well enough to say I loved the story.

I thought the way the book is written was distracting. It jumps back and forth between a four year gap throughout the entire book. As we neared the end, I no longer cared about what happened four years ago because I felt at that point we should have already known. It was frustrating, and I gave up caring why Peyton chose to go into the shelter, rather than go meet Chase.

At first I liked the characters. Chase seemed to have developed a shell over the years, as anyone who had endured four years in a post-apocalyptic world would, and Peyton was kick ass. She rarely shows that kick-ass-ness though, and she really didn’t have any other qualities that stood out to me. Chase’s shell quickly dissolves. He forgave Peyton a little too quickly, and didn’t really even demand an explanation. His obsessive feelings for her (you could call it love, but I won’t) was ridiculous, and I repressed the urge to roll my eyes every single time he referred to her as a “goddess”. He quickly turns into the obsessive fifteen year old boy he was before the apocalypse, and he was, in my opinion, incredibly immature. Immature for a nineteen year old, and even more immature for a nineteen year old who had survived four years in a world full of zombies.

It may sound like I hated this, but I really didn’t.  There were zombies, after all. On the surface it was actually a pleasant read, and I enjoyed myself. But if there had been more focus on the situation in the world and less focus on the undying love between Chase and Peyton, I would have enjoyed it a lot more.

Favorite lines:

“On the plus side, maybe we’ll get zombies. Usually when this kind of thing happens in the movies, they get zombies.”

“Oh yeah, zombies would be stellar,” Chris agreed.

3/5 Stars




4 comments:

  1. Awww, too bad. Well, at least it's a fun read. It's in my tbr pile as well.

    There are a number of books that are fun to read, but ultimately frustrating bc they have weak heroines and poor plotting. Sigh.

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  2. I felt the exact same way when I was reading this one. If you were to eliminate Chase and Peyton from the story it actually would have been pretty good. I'm not sure how they survived so long to begin with. But even with the annoying characters I still liked reading it! I guess zombie books, like zombie movies, are never truly a let down no matter how silly they turn out.

    Jesse
    Pretty In Fiction

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  3. I haven't read this one, but I have to admit, the synopsis didn't really turn me on. But I am a sucker for zombies and the undead (except traditional YA vampires). I'll probably wait for a few more reviews until I decide whether to read this or not. Great review!

    ~Megan at Book Brats

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  4. Thank you for an honest review. Not sure that I would read this book as I hate when books jump back and forth...it can be so hard to follow and few books do it well. I haven't heard of this book till your review and I don't think I would go looking for it but if after I've read ALL my other books, I might find this one.

    Wendy/books4me

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