Harrowing and gut-wrenching and real. I could only read about fifty pages at a time before I got too emotionally overwhelmed and had to set it down for a while. Laurie Halse Anderson doesn't hold back. 
 Hayley Kincain, our main character, is amazing. She's intensely damaged, but she has this spark inside of her that flickers hope every so often. Her father, Andy, gives the readers glimpses of what it was like in the war. (This is Afghanistan we're talking about--even kids born in a post-9/11 world will understand that this is recent.) Hayley's high school is split into the zombies and freaks. (Zombies follow the trends of popularity and the freaks are the outcasts. Hayley is a freak, naturally.) Hayley meets a boy named Finn, who almost immediately falls for her. I've read some stuff online that claims that Finn was too aggressive and too forceful of pushing Hayley's boundaries. I don't know if I'd go quite that far, but he's certainly not your typical, swoon-worthy YA boyfriend. He seems like a real boy, though, and I appreciated that part of the storytelling. 
 The real crux of the story is in the relationship between Hayley and her dad. This is a tale of familial duty. Life can be hard, really hard, and we have to learn to lean on each other so we can pull through the seemingly eternal winters together. Once we make it through winter, spring awaits us on the other side. 
 {4.5 stars}