Anna

Anna was a somewhat surprising novel, I chose it on the back of i’m not scared and wasn’t prepared for the startlingly good mash-up of Cormac McCarthy’s the road, lord of the flies and any one of a host of post-apocalyptic thrillers. The lead characters are vivid and their lifestyle and needs understandable in the extreme circumstances; if one could criticise the secondary characters are more thinly sketched. Regardless, the horror that is presented in such stark terms contrasts with the hope and determination of Anna and her brother despite the inevitability of what must lie ahead. Tense, dramatic and effective.

Sicily in the year 2020 - and the known world is in post-apocalyptic chaos after a mystery virus called Red Fever has wiped out all the adults and anyone post-puberty. Four years after the outbreak, 13 year old Anna and her younger brother Astor are barely surviving by foraging for food and supplies, with only Anna’s native wit and determination and the “book of important things” their dead mother has left them for guidance.
Ammaniti has a gift for portraying how a child’s mind works, which was evident in a previous suspense novel, 'I'm Not Scared', and his narrative detachment in describing the horrors of a world without adult supervision, compared with the natural optimism and worldly innocence of a child makes the bleakness of their plight all the more desperate. I was particularly moved by this description of the universal human will to survive against all odds:
‘Anna, in her lack of knowledge, sensed that all the creatures on this planet, from snails to swallows, and including human beings, must live. That is our mission; it has been written in our flesh. We must go on, without looking back, for the energy that pervades us is beyond our control, and even when despairing, maimed or blind, we continue to eat, sleep and swim, struggling against the whirlpool that sucks us down’.
A grim but rewarding read.

Anna is one part medical thriller and one part Maze Runner... serving up a heroine that stays with you long after the story ends. Against all odds and with the use of her dead mother's notebook of instructions to guide them, Anna sets out to provide her and her little brother a means of survival after a virus wipes out all adults and turns society inside out. In a world of desperation and suffering Anna and Astor search for the one thing that keeps them going - hope. Their journey is a page turner that will take you places right along with it!

I'm not a reader of dystopian fiction but I love Ammaniti's writing so I couldn't pass this up. This did not disappoint. The depiction of pre adolescent children was spot on and the story compelling. Lord of the flies meets Hunger Games. Ammaniti is Italy's greatest living writer.