Z for Zachariah is an uplifting novel, which transports your mind to another time and place. A time in which, there is very little human existence and a time, in which there are more important things to a 16-year-old girl than clothes, guys and make-up. 

This novel zones in on one of the remaining humans left on earth, a girl named Ann, who keeps a diary of all the events that occur after the country is devastated by a nuclear explosion. In her minds eye, it occurs that her little valley, which due to altitude levels survived the deadly explosion, is probably the only evidence of human existence left, and that she may possibly be the very last person  on the face of the Earth. Until a strange man comes along, and after all that has changed, can she trust him? Ann is  taken on a roller coaster of emotions and worries. 

Robert C O’brien does a very detailed and life-like account from a 16-year-old girl’s view, surprising us with powerful emotive language and adjectives, making us smile, laugh and feel tears run down our cheeks. After awhile you really start to feel for Ann. She’s lost everything, her family, friends, and now the future of the human race has been laid upon her shoulder. As you’re reading the book, you can see it in your mind, like a movie, playing and connecting together, scene by scene. 

The story of a new beginning for man-kind, a future Adam and Eve, and the worries of carrying the thought that you are to keep the human race alive, bring it back to life, I feel is fairly original and creative. It shows us a new revelation of how we’d feel, what could happen. Everyone would think, yeah well there’s still two people left, they can just reproduce and in time the human population will be repopulated, but what they don’t think about is, what if the two people don’t like one another? What if one is abusive or a murderer? What is the other to do then? Should they stay clear of them? Or stay close and just put up with everything? 

It really gets you thinking, what if this did magically happen and you were in her situation. What would you do? Would you follow Ann’s footsteps or forge your own path? 

All in all, This is a very time-stopping and observational novel, which gets you’re heart beating fast then slow, and then fast again. The language techniques pull you into the book, and out of your world, and into a new dimension.

So head down to your local bookstore or library and get yourself a copy of this intriguing novel.

Z for Zachariah is available from Amazon.

[Edited by Simon - added link]