At first I thought this was just going to be an overwritten, stuffy book by a young writer eager to prove she was "sophisticated." But once the second (unnecessarily convoluted) chapter was out of the way, I actually found myself enjoying the story far more than I expected. Partly this was due to the gripping nature of the word flu epidemic and its unknown cause, and partly because it was chilling to see just how close we've come to this dystopic version of the world.