Finally, characters with depth and real motivations—beyond just "don't die"! Exciting!

Flora finds herself in the middle of a dystopian nightmare: a mutated form of rabies has taken hold, infecting humans through bites and turning them into brainless, ravenous monsters who only crave human flesh. Sounds like a real party, right?

For Flora, though, it’s even worse than the average person’s horror. She struggles with contamination and harm OCD—a condition she hid from others in the "before" world but one that dominates her every thought now. Back then, she'd avoid buying snacks at the store if she thought they might've been handled by strangers. Now? Foraging through a post-apocalyptic wasteland for food and supplies is a nightmare come to life.

Still, Flora doesn’t have the luxury of giving up. Her older brother, sidelined by a broken leg early in the chaos, has been stuck at home, relying on her for everything. She’s had to adapt, scavenging for essentials and defending their little bubble of survival. But when a radio broadcast from their father—who left months ago to find a safe haven—gives them hope, they realize staying put isn’t an option anymore.

Leaving the safety of their home changes everything. Flora struggles to trust her brother with survival tasks, like fighting off the infected or scouting for supplies, while dealing with her own internal battle. On top of that, they cross paths with someone Flora knows—her long-standing crush—who’s managed to survive and has picked up a companion along the way. After a tense and messy reunion, they decide to travel together. What follows is a dangerous "road trip" filled with risks, hard choices, and the desperate goal of staying alive long enough to find their dad.

Much of the story unfolds in Flora’s mind, giving readers an intimate view of her struggle with OCD and her grief for the life she once knew. Alongside these personal battles, the plot slowly reveals twists and secrets that kept me hooked. The emotional depth, combined with the high stakes of survival, made for such an engaging read. I loved how thoughtfully it was written and cannot wait for this book to hit the shelves.

I always love a good zombie apocalypse book, but the thing is they’re never really that good. Either they’re too focused on action and the characters end up feeling flat, or it’s too much like a million other things I’ve seen from the genre. So I wasn’t expecting too much going into this, but it actually ended up being a pleasant surprise.

What really stood out was how character-driven the story was. It wasn’t something I had expected going into the story, but I really liked the characters and their dynamics, so I was happy we got to see a lot of that. I will say though as much as I enjoyed the characters, I do wish the plot had been a little more fleshed out, especially when it came to the villain. We don’t meet them until around the 70% mark, and the whole concept behind them and the group they were with was interesting, so I really wish we got to see them come in a bit earlier.

One aspect that I thought was done really well was the representation of the main character’s mental illness. It’s rare to see it written so well in a book like this, where the focus could have easily been just on the action, but the author did a good job of showing how OCD manifested in different ways for the main character before and after the apocalypse.

Speaking of before and after, we get dual timelines in this book, with one taking place before the apocalypse and the other being after. I honestly had mixed feeling on these, because while some of them created a nice parallel between the past and the present, others didn’t really seem necessary and kind of interrupted the flow of the story for me.

Overall, this offered a nice balance of emotion, representation, and action. Even though it might not be something I remember long term, I still found it enjoyable and would recommend it to anyone who wanted a character driven apocalyptic book.


Thank you to Netgalley for providing me with an e-arc in exchange for an honest review!

~🅞🅥🅔🅡🅐🅛🅛 🅡🅐🅣🅘🅝🅖: ★ ★ ★ ☆ ☆ . 25~

DISCLAIMER: This book was requested and received as an ARC through NetGalley.

I became a new adult during the first Trump administration, a time that felt metaphorically apocalyptic due to political stratification and then almost literally apocalyptic when the COVID-19 pandemic began. Today’s teens face a chaotic world of political, economic, and medical strife, and If We Survive This might be just the kind of book teens need to feel a moment of strength and catharsis in the current era. Racquel Marie introduces us to Flora, a teenager with OCD and anxiety who has to force herself to keep moving forward in a world where the rabies virus turns humans into bloodthirsty zombie-like creatures. Marie creates strikingly real characters with fascinating relationships and a truly horrifying world full of monsters both rabid and human. The novel’s pacing, particularly the late introduction to the climactic antagonists, suffers slightly in favor of the complex relationship blooming between Flora and the other characters, but ultimately this is a thrilling horror novel.

Zombies have never been my thing; I was never really into The Walking Dead but I did love The Last of Us, so I wanted to give this story a try, especially since it involves a female protagonist. The zombies in this book are scary, but the real highlight of this book is its characters. Flora is our protagonist, so we spend the book in her head. Flora experiences a mix of OCD and anxiety that were so realistic it made me ache and actually sigh with relief when her brother is finally able to empathize with her. And it’s not just Flora who is breathtakingly real. While we don’t get as intimate a look into the other characters because of Flora’s limited perspective, each character gets a few moments where they are allowed to be vulnerable with Flora so we can see their tender and complex personalities behind their stony survivalist exteriors.

It’s these relationship-building moments that I found most interesting in this book. Each character has a distinct personality from before the book’s apocalypse that has been molded for survival in this post-Rabid world. Quiet moments where characters are able to talk and develop trust and care for each other are just as engaging as the fast-paced action sequences of the crew fighting Rabids. Flora’s relationship with Crisanta, an old friend and former crush, is especially interesting to follow as it’s a rocky relationship from the start made more complicated by Cris’s refusal to be forthright about her life since the start of the apocalypse. Watching the group get closer and become more reliant on each other is just as intriguing of a journey as the actual trip to the cabin, offering an examination of the value of cooperation in times of crisis.

The one weakness in this book was the pacing. Particularly, the revelation of the climactic antagonist is withheld until the final 70-50 pages of the book. While it’s arguable that the main antagonist is Flora’s own mind, her OCD and anxiety, there is another highly important antagonist that I think would have been more effective if we were introduced to them earlier in the story. Also, the book is pretty short; the copy I read had 269 pages, and the book was split into four parts. Since there are not significant time jumps or anything between parts, I’m not sure what this structuring is meant to achieve. Perhaps it is trying to smooth transitions between legs of the journey, however I think the chapters do a good enough job of that. The pacing is also not all bad. I really enjoyed going back and forth between “Now” and “Then” to provide context for Flora’s mindset throughout the book and the history between the characters that makes their relationships so deep and complicated. It uses juxtaposition so we can better see Flora’s growth as a character and better appreciate her journey throughout the book, making it a wonderful framing device for this story.

Overall, this book was a great read. It took me a while to get into a groove reading it, but I think there is an audience of teens who would absolutely devour this story. It’s a thrilling adventure through a horrifying landscape with compelling interpersonal drama. So, a little something for everyone!

If We Survive This by Racquel Marie will be available in June of 2025 from Feiwel & Friends, and imprint of Macmillan Children’s Publishing Group.

Thank you to Macmillan Children's Publishing Group | Feiwel & Friends and NetGalley for allowing me to read this!

I truly enjoyed reading about Flora and her family. Like many apocalypse stories, there is flipping back and forth, but it's more than a direct narrative of Before Apocalypse and During/Main Plot Point. Instead, the sections set in the past tell us more of Flora, allowing a reader to understand her, and learn why she reacts the way she does, to see more of what we're missing, until the end of it is mostly, heartbreakingly, filled in.

Desperate hope, really, is the way I'd describe this book. And it's a very good zombie book, I feel, in that it sets its rules, and sticks to them. I look forward to recommending this to my students!

Engaging and immersive. A recommended purchase for YA and HS collections where apocalyptic fiction is popular.

I can't say that apocalypse books have ever been my favourite, but I really love Racquel Marie's previous books, so I was always going to give it a shot. And as a book about a rabies zombie apocalypse, this was great. I can't say I'll reach for it again, but I'm glad I read it, and I really loved all these characters and their relationships with each other.