My Rating: Er, 4+? 4.25? Well, you get the idea. 
 I'm glad that, when this title showed up on netGalley, I was curious enough to request it. It revealed itself to be an amazing novel indeed, and considering some of the last attempts at apocalyptic-dystopian fiction, I must say what Mullin wrote is to be considered a remarkable debut. 
 It's been a while since I liked a protag as much as I did Alex. Before the explosion of the volcano, he was an authentic teenager, and a lazy one at that. After, he was still a teenager, just a hungry, scared, lonely one. And he decided to take matters into his hands, and that's all he did. No extraordinary mission, no quest for power or glory or wealth, nothing but the search for his parents and his little sister. He was simply a human, and that's why I preferred him to the many wonderful, fantastic, overly cliched heroes we seem to get lately. 
 And what can I say about Darla? Forget blond skinny models, I want to be like her. She was everything you could ask for a kick-ass heroine, and I simply loved everything about her. I also found her relationship with Alex very sweet and I consider them one of the best fictional couples ever. 
 Mullin did a very good job with the plot, too: to be fair, it started off a bit slow, but it got interesting pretty soon and by the middle of the book, not even a volcano eruption couldn't distracted me from my reading. I particularly enjoyed the trip Alex and Darla take to go to Alex's uncle's house and the time they spend. Instead, I had mixed feelings about the Camp Galena part - it resembled way too much a concentration camp, and it was sometimes too graphic and, well, realistic for my tastes. It made my skin crawl. Especially since I believe humans to be capable of that and a lot more. 
 I hope the next installment will be a little more fast-paced, but otherwise I simply can't wait to discover how Alex will manage his "normal" life at his uncle's. I wish we won't have to wait too long!