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<\/a><\/center><\/div>Michael is your typical older brother devoted to looking after his younger sibling. I really liked how Michael was written as not falling into the belief that there was something wrong with his brother for being autistic, but rather realized it was everything else around his brother that overwhelmed him that was the problem. This is the opposite of how Michael\u2019s stepfather viewed Patrick; he had the child hospitalized in the past and planned to do so again before the brothers ran away during the start of the apocalypse.<\/p>\nIn the beginning, I enjoyed reading about Patrick as well. This was mostly due to my interest in seeing how the author portrayed the character\u2019s autism. \u00a0A sensitivity to synthetic fabrics and shutting down if he got too scared are two examples of Patrick\u2019s autistic traits. As one can imagine, the latter trait is rather dangerous when being pursued by zombies and violent people.<\/p>\n
In fact, a good amount of the tension in the story comes from Michael trying to prevent Patrick from doing just that. He gives his brother Atipax pills to help keep him calm while traveling the road trying to reach the safe zone \u2014 a place said to be free of \u201cBellows,\u201d this story\u2019s version of the walking dead, and where they hope to find their mother.<\/p>\n
I don\u2019t remember it ever being addressed whether Patrick consented to taking the pills. Although it\u2019s unfortunate, it\u2019s common for young children to be prescribed medication without much say in the matter, or to defer to their caretakers. While it wasn\u2019t explicit, I think this had more to do with his age than his autism, so it didn\u2019t bother me personally.<\/p>\n
A good part of the book revolves around something known as the game. Which is basically a set of instructions on how to make it from one day to the next, one town to the next. Points are earned for killing Bellows, restocking on ammo, et cetera, in the way a video game might be played.<\/p>\n
A mysterious figure known as the Game Master who appears to Michael to give instructions invented the game, the rules, and its point system \u2014 or so Michael would have Patrick believe. In reality, Michael is the mastermind behind the game, using it as one more way to keep Patrick calm on their journey. Michael essentially teaches Patrick through the game that people and Bellows can\u2019t hurt him. It\u2019s against the rules. So you can imagine Patrick\u2019s distress and confusion when both Bellows and humans start to break these rules in increasingly violent ways.<\/p>\n
Patrick is at least partially humanized through his emotions and voice. His reactions are believable for a young boy and that\u2019s where an audience would connect with him. However, he is often used as a tool to create tension in the story and drive Michael\u2019s journey. Everything he does is about protecting Patrick, keeping Patrick calm, and making sure Patrick doesn\u2019t have a meltdown. In the end, this takes away not just from the character of Patrick, but Michael as well.<\/p>\n
There\u2019s a bit of romance to this book, which is one of the few times Michael\u2019s motivations fall outside of keeping Patrick safe and finding their mother, but it\u2019s secondary to what else is going on. This was fine with me, as I don\u2019t enjoy an overabundance of romance during a story where the main goal is living to see the next day.<\/p>\n
This book definitely had its creepy moments, especially with the first encounter of the cultists \u2014 a group of people convinced that the Bellows are God\u2019s chosen for the rapture. After several more encounters with the cult and the Bellows, however, I was ready to reach the ending.<\/p>\n
I\u2019m not sure how I feel about this book in the end. Parts piqued my interest and made me nervous for Michael and Patrick, but there were also moments I just wanted to flip ahead. I enjoyed it at first but was bored by the ending.\u00a0I think other books have taken the protective older brother trope and did it better, without turning the younger brother into a plot device.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
This book definitely had its creepy moments, but I think other books have taken the protective older brother trope and did it better\u2014without turning the younger brother into a plot device.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":65,"featured_media":2292,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_generate-full-width-content":"","kt_blocks_editor_width":""},"categories":[62],"tags":[140,191],"genre":[29],"age_category":[8],"disability":[7],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/disabilityinkidlit.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2438"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/disabilityinkidlit.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/disabilityinkidlit.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/disabilityinkidlit.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/65"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/disabilityinkidlit.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2438"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/disabilityinkidlit.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2438\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7308,"href":"https:\/\/disabilityinkidlit.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2438\/revisions\/7308"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/disabilityinkidlit.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2292"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/disabilityinkidlit.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2438"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/disabilityinkidlit.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2438"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/disabilityinkidlit.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2438"},{"taxonomy":"genre","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/disabilityinkidlit.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/genre?post=2438"},{"taxonomy":"age_category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/disabilityinkidlit.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/age_category?post=2438"},{"taxonomy":"disability","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/disabilityinkidlit.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/disability?post=2438"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}