Review by Cadence Chen, 17

Any Sign of Life By Rae Carson

Paige Miller wakes up to the end of the world. When she went to sleep, she had everything. A loving family. A best friend. A scholarship to play the sport she loves. But upon awakening, she has lost it all. The world is now filled with the remnants of humanity: corpses, feral animals, and destruction. As Paige navigates this new world, picking up other survivors along the way, she slowly realizes the destruction of everything she ever knew was not an accident. And that things are about to take a turn for the worse.

Rae Carson’s Any Sign of Life is a wonderfully realistic and fast paced story of friendship and perseverance. The main character, Paige, instantly pulls the reader in with her dedication to basketball, and later, survival. She’s empathetic, but at the same time, isn’t afraid to be realistic and honest with herself and others, which I appreciated. There’s a blossoming love between her and another survivor, but it’s subtle and doesn’t detract from the main plot and other relationships. Other characters are fully fleshed out and feel real. I like how some characters are definitely more difficult to warm up to, but as the story progresses, I found myself rooting for them and their happiness; one in particular even managed to become my favorite out of the small group. The plot and storyline doesn’t seem out of the ordinary in the beginning–it starts off as a typical post apocalyptic story. However, as events unfold, it definitely separates itself from other stories in the same genre. Rae Carson is able to find the right balance between domestic and action scenes that gives this book an irresistible lure. The plot doesn’t drag, but instead lulls at all the right moments, giving much needed moments of rest for both the reader and the characters, before tossing another tension-filled scene in. While many aspects of the book were great, I felt like a majority was a prologue to the real story that only starts kicking in towards the very end. However, this is understandable given the explanations given by a certain character, so it wasn’t much of a problem. Overall, Any Sign of Life is an amazing read if you’re looking for something post apocalyptic with a great, albeit small, cast of characters.

4.5 stars.

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