At the end of Alone, while the story wraps up nicely, we are left without knowing what really happened to the world Maddie lives in. Freeman could have left us with that, and it would have been fine, but when I saw that there was a follow up, I had to have it.
The story starts the same place Alone starts, but from the perspective of the people who made it onto the transport vans, including Ashanti, Maddie's sleepover buddy. We also meet Grandin, a country boy whose dad refused to get on the transport, Harmony, an aspiring journalist, and Teddy, who loves movies and film. These four are thrown together when the transports arrive at the "camps." As life settles down and time passes, and the people are still not told what existential threat the outside world is facing, these kids aim to get to the bottom of the mystery. When all was revealed, I found the answer to be completely plausible.
I did find it to be a little less compulsively readable than Alone, simply due to all the jumping around in formatting. Ashanti writes in verse, Harmony writes via letters to her aunt, and Teddy's sections read like a screenplay. A neat idea, but it made it a little harder to follow for me.
All in all, a very worthy follow-up to Alone with a satisfying and believable ending!
