City of Savages

City of Savages

By Lee Kelly

      I was trying to remember the last time a book kept me so entranced, so non-stop page turning that I just had to find out what happened... and the last time I can think of is... Hunger Games. So, this is definitely on par with that. I really liked it! It is shelved Adult Fiction at my library, but could easily be YA... (there is some cursing, violence, one memory is relayed of a girl kissing a girl...etc.) 

    20 years or so after the 3rd world war. Manhattan has been destroyed and there is a group of survivors in Central Park somehow living under a warlord (or as this book calls them whorelords).  They farm in the park , live in hotels right by the park, and have to answer to the leader Rolladin.  There is a census every year where they see how many people are left and it is at this census that our story picks up.

    They assume that the conquering army (Red Allies) are still out there and Rolladin has made some kind of agreement with these people to scrape out an existence in this park as long as certain polices and rules are met. Among those survivors, are a woman and her two teenage daughters. Conditions are not the best, but somehow they make it work amidst all the dysfunctional politics and rules.

    Things start to change when a group of men arrive from overseas (Britain) everyone assumed their little Central Park Haven was the last (this they were led to believe), and that they were the last people living , and are shocked to see these men and hear their accents. With the arrival of these men begin a spiral of events and the possibility that maybe the war is over, and maybe there is way off the island. 

    Amidst all of this going on the 2 sisters find their mom's journal which is filled with her last months leading up the invasion. Detailed explanations of what happened, why, and how her mom and others survived in subway tunnels until coming to the park. These events have never been explained to the girls as their mom believes "the past should be kept in the past", and so this is a HUGE treasure to have and to read. The journal entries are interspersed throughout the story. I really liked the way it ended, and am SUPER happy it is a stand-alone. This book was on several MUST READ lists. Author is GREAT, and has new book coming out in 2016!!