Review of POD by Stephen Wallenfels

POD's - strange alien spheres hover menacingly in the sky, zapping anyone who ventures outside.

Josh is 15 and stuck in his house with his OCD dad. They're running out of food... Megs is 12, alone and trapped in a multi-storey carpark. The hotel next door is under the control of dangerous security staff, but Megs has something they want, and they'll do anything to get it...

When the aliens invade, the real enemy becomes humanity itself.

What would you do to survive?

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From the start the story really hooked me in and I couldn't stop reading!  It follows the stories of two kids who are trapped in very different situations after an Alien invasion, although the things that happen to them mirror each other. 

After the Aliens have invaded no-one can go outside without getting 'deleted' by the PODs (Pearls of Death) which makes for some pretty interesting and slightly claustrophobic reading! Josh is 15 and he's stuck in his home with his Father in Washington and Megs is 12 and is stuck in a car parking lot in Los Angeles. Josh is having to deal with his Father's OCD on top of everything else, and that puts him in some very stressful situations. On top of that, he has no idea if his Mother is alive - the same as Megs. Her Mother left her in their car just before the Invasion, for a 'Job Interview', promising to come back soon. Of course, because of the invasion she doesn't come back and Megs has to learn to fend for herself - and not let herself be seen by a gang of thugs that have taken over the Hotel that the Parking Lot is attached to. She's pretty resourceful, finding both food and water in various different places, including 'Bloaters' - dead bodies.

The story flows really well throughout, switching fromA Josh to Megs each chapter. Josh's Dad slowly gets weirder and weirder and Megs' hiding places become smaller and smaller until three quarters of the way through both are forced to take drastic action. There's some pretty heavy subjects later on, so this is definitely not a fluffy read! The ending worked very well but I was rather disappointed that we didn't get concrete answers. There were a few too many unanswered questions, so I'm hoping that a sequel  will be released!

4/5


Received free from Templar in exchange for an honest review