From Amazon Customer – Review of Colony East
Predictable? No. Fast? Like lightening. Complex? Like the finest wine. Hopeful? Maybe. Suspenseful? I’m not sure I’ll sleep tonight. This second book by Scott Cramer is, in my opinion, better than the first, and that’s saying something. Mr. Cramer has created what seemed like a young adult book at the onset (Book 1), but rapidly developed into a much broader, much more complex series that not only addresses real world issues, but does so in a way where the gloves come off and stay off. He takes no hostages. No one, no system is safe from his writer’s pen.
In Book 2, Mr. Cramer has woven a story that is like two highways that run parallel to each other. Both go in the same directions, but hold different vistas for those that travel them. At some point in the mileage, the two highways converge, and as the book ends, we find ourselves at the convergence of those highways.
The characters from book 1 two years into the post comet world are with us still in this book. Life on the island has developed into a semblance of the old world, though they are without many of the amenities that made life “nice”. The older kids, now treated from the bacteria spawned from the comet, are teaching the younger kids how to live, to survive the world as they know it. Some of the older kids, however, are no longer with us, including Emily. Her death has been a difficult thing for Jordan to come to terms with and he finds a way of dealing with it that takes him far from his sisters and the island. In the meantime, the youngest Leigh, Toucan, comes down with a new mysterious disease that may have a cure that is only found with the adults form the CDC and the military who have established a colony in New York. Taking her there seems like the only option.
On the other highway we find characters from the colony in New York whose lives paint an entirely different picture for us. Some there are good, though they are complicit by their cooperation with those who would use science without humanity as a way to formulate the future.
When Abby and Toucan find themselves at the Colony, along with many new friends and new enemies, they lose track of Jordan, who has his own problems. Not far apart, but unaware of the other’s plight, the suspense increases as Toucan is transported away from Abby, and Abby finds that her misplaced trust in others might just cause her to die.
With a hurricane barreling down on the east coast, with the newest medical breakthroughs only a building or two away, with Jordan desperately trying to make his way home, and Abby lost in the midst of New York, things look hopeless for all of humanity. The final pages of the book offer us hope for the future, or at least hope for our family from the island. But what will happen to the rest of the world, those left to face the most devastating disaster yet – a new medical catastrophe waiting to happen? Book 3 will let us know!
This book series is excellent. I cannot recommend it enough, both for adults and for young adults. While the situations are intense and the concepts are not for the younger set, the imagination and character development is excellent and well worth the time to read….and enjoy! Well done, Mr. Cramer, well done.