The Eleventh Plague

Title: The Eleventh Plague

Author: Jeff Hirsch

Publisher: Scholastic, Inc. (2011)

Genre(s): Young Adult Fiction, Post-Apocalyptic Fiction

Length: 278 pages

Synopsis:  For Stephen Quinn, death is a daily occurrence.  He was born in the years after the Collapse, the international conflict that ended with the release of P-11, a deadly plague that wiped out most of the American populace.  Stephen and his family were salvagers, gathering bits of the past to trade, held together by the military discipline of his grandfather.  But the world is a cruel, harsh place, as Stephen’s grandfather reminds him on a daily basis.  Before long, Stephen finds himself alone, forced to make his own decisions.  When he comes across the town of Settler’s Landing, it all seems too good to be true— stable families, houses, medicine.  His grandfather’s voice whispers incessantly, “No one does anything for free.”  But Stephen is on his own now.  Can he risk everything he’s known for a life in Settler’s Landing?  More importantly, can he afford not to?

My Rating: 3 Stars

My Opinion: 

This is not typical post-apocalyptic literature.  For books like The Hunger Games, The Road, even  Brave New World, the very post-apocalyptic-ness of the world acts more as a character than a setting.  It is crucial, shaping   The Eleventh Plague is post-apocalyptic in the sense that the disasters that stripped away the world as we know it are truly in the past.  Stephen is a member of the first generation that has known only this new world, and for him the Collapse is only a story his parents told.  He lives with its realities every day, of course, and the story would not function without its setting, but this book lacks the political commentary of others in this genre.  This is not necessarily a bad thing.  Without satirical or cynical overtones, the narrative here focuses on Stephen and his conflicts with the world, both internal and external.  The voices of his role models ring loudly in his ears even after the voices themselves are stilled.  His desire for change is obvious, but time and again he falls back on the familiar in a very believable way.  It becomes a very relatable coming-of-age story in a very possible, if somewhat grim, future.  But, alas, this genre has become so popular of late that The Eleventh Plague falls victim to its own uniqueness.  It doesn’t have the visceral impact of its fellows or the escapism provided by fantastically unrecognizable worlds.  By these expectations it falls short, and though Stephen is believable and relatable, as a coming-of-age story, it is not particularly unique.  It is well written and a solid story, but, overall, not exceedingly remarkable.