Book Review - The Things That Keep Us Here by Carla Buckley

From Amazon:

How far would you go to protect your family?

Ann Brooks never thought she’d have to answer that question. Then she found her limits tested by a crisis no one could prevent. Now, as her neighborhood descends into panic, she must make tough choices to protect everyone she loves from a threat she cannot even see. In this chillingly urgent novel, Carla Buckley confronts us with the terrifying decisions we are forced to make when ordinary life changes overnight.

A year ago, Ann and Peter Brooks were just another unhappily married couple trying–and failing–to keep their relationship together while they raised two young daughters. Now the world around them is about to be shaken as Peter, a university researcher, comes to a startling realization: A virulent pandemic has made the terrible leap across the ocean to America’s heartland. And it is killing fifty out of every hundred people it touches. As their town goes into lockdown, Peter is forced to return home–with his beautiful graduate assistant. But the Brookses’ safe suburban world is no longer the refuge it once was. Food grows scarce, and neighbor turns against neighbor in grocery stores and at gas pumps. And then a winter storm strikes, and the community is left huddling in the dark.

Trapped inside the house she once called home, Ann Brooks must make life-or-death decisions in an environment where opening a door to a neighbor could threaten all the things she holds dear. Carla Buckley’s poignant debut raises important questions to which there are no easy answers, in an emotionally riveting tale of one family facing unimaginable stress.


My Thoughts:

This story was very unsettling because it could happen to us at any time. I was discussing it with my husband, and we both agreed that if this were to really happen, he and I would probably not survive.

Carla Buckley brings to life a very real and frightening event of the worst kind.....a pandemic. It happens quickly, and within days many people are sick and dying. While I was reading, I realized exactly how much I take for granted in life. Shaken to the core after reading this book, I won't take anything for granted any more....electricity, medical care, clean and safe water to drink.....and most of all, my family.

The Things That Keep Us Here is an engrossing read, that kept me thinking about it while I was not even reading it. I will remember it for a long time, and I will also be looking forward to more books by Carla Buckley.

Very Good!

• Hardcover: 416 pages
• Publisher: Delacorte Press; 1 edition (February 9, 2010)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0440245095
• ISBN-13: 978-0440245094

For more information about the author, please visit: www.carlabuckley.com.