Another not so crunchy review: Flowertown by S.G. Redling

This book was one of those impulse amazon purchases that I'm guilty of (FAR to often...ahem). You know them? You see the cover, read just a little then CLICK it's on your device before you have time to think about it? You know you do that....okay, maybe it's just me (I do have over SIX HUNDRED books on my kindle devices for a reason.)

I am extremely glad I purchased this one. It was one of those surprising reads that you sometimes stumble across. The books takes place in middle of nowhere midwest America (Iowa I believe) in a small bit of land that was the subject of an accidental spill of a highly toxic pesticide. Now all the residents of what they call "Flowertown" are in quarintine, maintained by both the military and the company that is responsible for the chemical that they were infected with. The quarintine has lasted over six years when we enter the story and things are definately falling apart. Everything has to be kept isolated so water, food supplies...everything is balancing on a delicate edge. The book goes on to have a component of psycological warfare that is terrifying when you really think about how close to the truth it could be.

Part of why I enjoyed the book so much is, as you may have noticed in my blog, the issues hit close to my own fears, contaminated food and water and a system that is run more by big corporations than government. The book takes a hard look at what might happen in this very possible scenario, and the most striking was the apathy of the world outside of Flowertown to the suffering of the people with in. But knowing what happens in our world now, it's not that shocking afterall....(Remember how long the people of Katrina suffered? And the story was less and less "news worthy"? This is a seriously plausible scenario.)

The author of this book is new on the scene and I love that as well. I know the book had it's faults and flaws, but I think that overall it was an amazing start to her carreer as an author and I'm looking forward to seeing more works from her, including hopefully a second installment to Flowertown itself!