Friday 10 October 2014

The Rain - Book Rant


The Rain (The Rain #1)
by Virginia Bergin


What is it about:
It's in the rain...and just one drop will kill you.

They don't believe it at first. Crowded in Zach's kitchen, Ruby and the rest of the partygoers laugh at Zach's parents' frenzied push to get them all inside as it starts to drizzle. But then the radio comes on with the warning, "It's in the rain! It's fatal, it's contagious, and there's no cure."

Two weeks later, Ruby is alone. Anyone who's been touched by rain or washed their hands with tap water is dead. The only drinkable water is quickly running out. Ruby's only chance for survival is a treacherous hike across the country to find her father-if he's even still alive.


What did I think of it:
First: Starting a book with telling me it's not meant to entertain me, is not a wise move, even if it's meant to show it's supposedly written by the main character. I thought about putting it down right away.

On to the rest of my rant.

I will confess: I wanted Ruby to die a horrible death, because in my opinion that would have been the most likely turn of events.

Somewhere in this book one of the other characters told Ruby what I wanted to scream at her: Think!

Ruby doesn't!

Let me paint you a picture:
The rain is poison. One drop touching you is enough to kill you. After a rainstorm Ruby goes on a bike ride on a hot day without water. She gets thirsty. She picks up a piece of gravel from the road to suck on to quench her thirst...

If I had my way she would have died an agonizing death right there and then.

But no, Ruby gets away with a stupid act like that, while other people, who do stop to think, die because of randomness or evil acts by other people.

The only reason I kept reading was for the other people Ruby encounters, because besides being unthinking and rash, Ruby is shallow and unlikable.

I really hoped things would eventually look up, that Ruby would grow on me, and stop acting as annoying as she did. In the end none of those things happened, and I won't be reading the next book in this series.

Why should you read it:
Maybe you will like Ruby where I just couldn't.


buy the book from The Book Depository, free delivery

6 comments:

Enbrethiliel said...

+JMJ+

I do love your negative reviews, Sully! LOL!

And I really can't blame you . . . Anyone who knows that the rain is fatal and then deliberately sucks on a piece of gravel that had been out in the rain has a death wish . . . or a desperately low IQ. =P One of my pet peeves is protagonists who do a lot of stupid things and then have the stupid things turn out okay for no good reason at all. It's really bad plotting from the authors, with the extra negative effect of making the protagonists totally unsympathetic. I'd like them better, I think, if they did stupid things but then had to bear the consequences of them.

M.A.D. said...

This really reminds me of a book I just noticed tonight called H2O ... must be lots of perilous precipitation going around lol
ps - yeah, I loathe morons in books/movies/tv series ... some of the characters in Walking Dead drive me bonkers :P

Sullivan McPig said...

I think H2O is the US title of this book.

M.A.D. said...

Sully, I do believe you are correct - also the diff covers threw me off lol

Sullivan McPig said...

Those different titles and covers for US and UK editions can be so confusing. Sometimes I have to check if I already have a book or not.

Aurian said...

Ok, poison rain, should not every plant and animal outside die as well? And that heroine really does sound tstl. I hate that in a book.