Ashes / Ilsa Bick / 465 pages

Michael Grant, author of the Gone series, says, this book is "a haunting and epic story of survival in a shattered world.  Ashes is a must read."  I would wait for the sequel, however, if I were you, because many of the story's problems and plot lines are left unresolved at the story's end.  Alex has an inoperable brain tumor that is slowly killing her.  She decides to skip school and hike a distance to spread her parents' ashes and perhaps to solve her own problem.  While in the woods, an electromagnetic pulse flashes, destroying every electronic device, wiping out every computerized system, and killlng billions.  It seems the very young and much older folks with brain anomalies are spared.  Who can be trusted?  Will Alex reconnect with Tom and Ellie?