I Regret Buying This | The Storm


The Storm by Virginia Bergin
Publisher: Pan Macmillan
Release date: February 1st, 2015
Genres: YA, Dystopian, Survival, Sci-fi
Pages:  371
Source: Bought it
"I'll tell you a weird thing about apocalypses - a thing I didn't even know until I was in one: they seem pretty bad, don't they? Well, take it from me: they can always get worse."

Three months after the killer rain first fell, Ruby is beginning to realise her father might be dead . . . and that she cannot survive alone. When a chance encounter lands her back in the army camp, Ruby thinks she is safe - at a price. Being forced to live with Darius Spratt is bad enough, but if Ruby wants to stay she must keep her eyes - and her mouth - shut. It's not going to happen. When she realizes what is going on - the army is trying to find a cure by experimenting on human subjects - Ruby flips out . . . and makes an even more shocking discovery: she's not useless at all. The Storm begins . . .
 
Review:
 
First, read my review of the previous book here.

Have you heard of The Rain? It's the first book of the series. Because of so many reasons, I had to give it 1.5 stars. But, apparently, the sequel was no better than the first one. I didn't have any expectations when I first ordered The Storm through an online bookstore, but, when I started reading it, I realized that it was just as bad as the first one and I found myself not enjoying it at all. 



The Storm starts 3 months after the ending of The Rain. The killer-rain that has the ability to murder living objects just by one drop of it is still happening. How did Ruby manage to survive that long in the middle of an apocalypse on her own? Apparently, she becomes way smarter than her previous self in the first book. When she thinks that nothing worse can happen because.. well, there's absolutely nothing worse than the current situation, right? Or so she thought.

You probably know by now that I dislike the first book so much. The idea of being in the killer-rain again with Ruby is so unbearable I almost didn't buy this book. But, apparently curiosity got the best of me because I bought it. Why? I just wanted to know how she managed to survive as she absolutely had no chance of surviving in the first book. I wanted to know what would happen in the sequel rather than her trying to live as long as she can because if that's the only case, then it would be boring as fuck. I also wanted to find out whether this book is as bad as the previous one. Apparently yes.

But, let's face it, even though I said I didn't enjoy it at all, I actually have some things that I liked in this book and I'm gonna make a list of it:

Ruby becomes smarter and more badass! She knows all the things about surviving in the apocalypse and that's totally unexpected of her (as I was expecting literally nothing). She has vast knowledge even most of the adults in the book don't know anything of. She becomes more strong-willed and courageous and adult-like in this one. Can't blame her, that girl has had a rough few months. In case you haven't read the book or my previous review, lemme tell you, Ruby was so so so annoying in The Rain. Rather than spending her time on something useful like scavenging food and water, she spends a huge precious amount of her time trying to get a tan by using tan sprayer!


The romance is so cute! The romance Ruby has is with this guy from her school. In the first book, they pretty much hate each other, but under the current circumstances they had to stick together if they wanted to survive. What I liked is that the whole is pretty much anti-instalove and adorable. Everything was so gradual and in place you just have to love them together.

And here are the things I disliked about this book:

The writing style still annoys me. Or, like I said in the first review, deformed as fuck. I had to keep myself from dozing off and skipping through most of it. There were so many unnecessary words here and there. There were also times when I found there's a whole paragraph that took up half a page and it was actually only a sentence. A. SENTENCE. It would've been great if the author had had a writing class before creating the whole thing.

I had to keep re-reading because I just didn't understand what's going on, like, 65% of the time. I also didn't know who was who most of the time. I didn't get whether Ruby was actually talking to an army person or someone insignificant or maybe that's just me. But, get this, if the book failed to make me interested enough to keep track of who is this and who is that, then maybe it fails as a book in general. I'm just saying.

The plot was so so so lame and cliche. Seriously, it just got worse and worse. It was so predictable and unoriginal and I just couldn't make sense most of it. I had to keep myself from cringing and like I said, dozing off.


The ending was somewhat rushed and bumpy and incomplete. It was so unsatisfying I wanted to throw it away or burn it. But, I didn't. I also felt like there are so many things left unanswered. Maybe it's because the book was written only from Ruby's point of view and that way we don't get to find out what was going on while the other character (you know, like Darius) was on his own. I mean, Darius was such a great character and I liked him better than Ruby, it was just too bad as we only get to stick with Ruby for TWO WHOLE BOOKS.

I was disappointed, unsatisfied and that's why I'm giving it 2.5 stars. I actually won't recommend the duology to anyone as there's actually nothing worth reading for. The whole idea of killer-rain actually did somewhat amuse me, but the books failed to develop and turn it into a masterpiece. If you have read The Rain, though, I'll recommend you to read this just to find out what really happens in the end. But, overall, the book isn't that great.

My rating:  2.5 of 5 stars

Reviewed by Inas

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