The Eleventh Plague

by Jeff Hirsch

Jeff Hirsch's stunning debut is now in paperback! In the aftermath of a war, America's landscape has been ravaged and two-thirds of the population left dead from a vicious strain of influenza. Fifteen-year-old Stephen Quinn and his family were among the few that survived and became salvagers, roaming the country in search of material to trade. But when Stephen's grandfather dies and his father falls into a coma after an accident, Stephen finds his way to Settler's Landing, a community that seems too good to be true. Then Stephen meets strong, defiant, mischievous Jenny, who refuses to accept things as they are. And when they play a prank that goes horribly wrong, chaos erupts, and they find themselves in the midst of a battle that will change Settler's Landing--and their lives--forever.

Genres: Young Adult, Dystopia, Post Apocalyptic, Science Fiction, Fiction, Audiobook, Survival

288 pages, Paperback

First published September 1, 2011

About the author

Here are some things about me.

I live in an extremely Brazilian section of an extremely Greek neighborhood—Astoria, Queens, which is just to the right of Manhattan. (That's as you face Manhattan. If you were, say, lying on your back in the middle of Central Park with your head in a northerly position, we would be to your left) I live there with my wife who has a blog and our two cats who do not. One day I hope to have a very large dog that I can name Jerry Lee Lewis.

I used to write plays (I actually have an MFA in it, which is currently number 8 on US News and World Report's annual list of the top twenty most useless masters degrees) and now I write books for teens. I've written two. One was about a girl who wanted to be a rock star and could graciously be called a learning experience.

The second, is The Eleventh Plague and it comes out Sept. 1, a fact I still find pretty amazing.

Reviews

[karen · Rating 2 out of 5]

*EDIT shit - i forgot to say one little thing*

i initially gave this book three stars, but when i sat down to write my little book report, i found that i was so bored by the prospect, that it really should lose a star for leaving me so underwhelmed.

because writing book reports is fun!!!

you can put in pictures:





oooh, urban wasteland!

you can arbitrarily highlight your most emphatic words so people will notice you!

you can make links to things that have nothing whatsoever to do with your review (you should click that - halfway through, your heart is going to melt and it will not stop melting until the end)

but this book did not inspire any of that in me.

it is a pretty uninspired post-apoc. tale. or maybe i just have read too many of these things and they get same-y after a while. at any rate - the thing that was good and different in this one was mostly the character of the narrator. and by "character" i mean capital-c character. he is a salvager, roaming the bleak landscape with his overbearing military grandfather and his milquetoast dad. the grandfather is being buried on page one, but his spirit lives on in both of them - the father seems cowed and weak-willed, presumably as a result of being bullied by grandpa, until he does One Big Thing with disastrous results, while the son seems to have inherited a streak of badassery from his grandfather, but it never goes far enough, in my opinion. it seems to lost steam halfway through, when, surrounded by a real community, he starts to get all soft and runny. it would have been better to see him retain his flint and his mistrust because these are the qualities of a true survivor, but alas, it was not to be.

enter girl, after all.

she is a pretty good character. but this book feels wasted to me. i would have like to read a book that takes place before this one, when the three menfolk were plodding along, trying to stay alive. i would like to read the book that takes place after this one but not his story - i want to know what happens with her - scouting the wasteland and seeing what she sees

and i am all for instilling a sense of independence in the teen audience and i understand that it is very important to make decisions that are right for every individual, but seriously? you just gave up a girl who likes you in a post-apocalyptic situation with very few options...for baseball??? dude, not cool

i guess it is good that i don't feel excited to write this review, so i can save all that excitement for writing the paper i am taking a break from to write this, but still - i would rather have loved this.

** right - i forgot - WORST FINAL SENTENCE EVER. seriously - it takes the feeling i had when reading that part of underworld that gave me soul-scabies and somehow made it worse. YES, I UNDERSTAND THAT WORDS CAN HAVE TWO MEANINGS - I SEE WHAT YOU ARE DOING. your cleverness is not going unnoticed. or un-shuddered at.

come to my blog!

[starryeyedjen · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was excited to read this debut novel from Jeff Hirsch, especially after word got out that Suzanne Collins had blurbed it, saying, "The Eleventh Plague hits disturbingly close to home...An excellent, taut debut novel." Dystopians are all the rage right now, but I wanted to read something different, and this book provides just that.

First off, I enjoy a good male protagonist. After reading so many dystopian/post-apocalyptic novels, one begins to wonder, are young women the only ones who will stay strong in the face of adversity? That's obviously not going to be the case when things do take a turn for the worse, so it was nice to have a strong male lead in young Stephen Quinn.

The world the author has created is surreal but entirely plausible. The aftermath of a war between North America and China was a flu-like pandemic that eradicated a good percentage of North America's population and left the survivors with nothing. The country is a wasteland, there are those who would push the survivors into slavery, and no one is safe. But when Stephen is left on his own, he discovers a community that has some semblance of what the world was like before the war.

I think the thing that made this novel so realistic to me was that the kids were still kids, at least in Settler's Landing. The children in the village still attend school, still play baseball, still pull pranks on each other. I think when faced with such hardships, human beings will always fall back on what they're accustomed to. And since the adults in this novel were all young adults themselves when the plague hit, they want their children to have that same sense of normalcy, no matter how short-lived it may be.

Kudos to Mr. Hirsch. I don't like to envision that our great nation could end up torn asunder in the manner of his book, but I'm glad to think that if it does, we'll still all be red-blooded Americans at heart if it comes to that.


*I won a signed ARC of this novel from the author on http://www.jeff-hirsch.com/.*

**Review also posted on http://starryeyedrevue.blogspot.com/.**

[Nick · Rating 1 out of 5]

After reading this book here is a list of things I'm not sure this author understands:

guns
baseball
dialogue
teenage angst
love
age
marriage
Christianity
fire
weather
time
forests
figurative language
casinos
antagonists
shovels
Brave New World

This book read more like a bad episode of Little House on the Prairie (you know, the episodes when they stopped following the books). The most interesting characters were dead and in a coma the entire time. The love story was totally forced, the characters completely hollow, and it didn't make any sense. I have no idea who these characters are, how old they are, or anything else. They acted like they were six years old, then they were fighting and in war like they were in their twenties, only to start acting like winy teenagers. None of this made any sense, and I'm very disappointed. I'd wanted to read this book for a long time and when I finally did I was horribly disappointed. Seriously, go read Cormac McCarthy's The Road and skip this one. It'll be in the free bin at a garage sale soon enough.

[Rose · Rating 2 out of 5]

With a title like "The Eleventh Plague" one would suspect that an illness/virus is the biggest, most immediate threat that the characters have to face. But the actual story is more like the aftermath of an insinuated plague, involving a fifteen year old boy roaming alongside his father and grandfather as scavengers, until some difficult circumstances come to pass. So there's a bit of false advertisement in the title, because it's more about the people living in the aftermath of the plague. I decided to give this a read anyway, since it's my kind of genre.

I really wanted to love this book, but sadly it wasn't to be. Don't get me wrong, it's well-written in spurts, and I finished it in an afternoon, but sadly it felt very lacking when juxtaposed to books in its same genre, alongside some progressions which I found difficult to believe in the world that was built. I loved the audiobook narration by Dan Bittner, but it was difficult to maintain interest in some measures when the story shifted from survival, to love story, to political rises without a lot of depth. It seemed like it could've been developed a bit more.

The story centers on Stephen Quinn, a boy making his way through civilization with his father and Grandfather. His grandfather passes and changes the survival dynamic between Stephen and his father (considering their grandfather ruled their actions with an iron fist). Stephen's father decides to help two captured civilians, but all heck breaks loose, leading to his father becoming severely injured and Stephen seeking refuge for the both of them in a civilized colony that seems peaceful, but Stephen doesn't trust it. Still, he tries to integrate himself in the society.

The story somewhat drags its feet after the initial events, and there are some actions that Stephen takes that I don't think add up in plausibility to cause the rift that occurs towards the end of the work. In some moments, I see myself following Stephen in his struggles to fit in with the society, but there are other times when I want to throttle him for being so passive and quick to go along with what seem to be very unwise decisions. Still, there are moments here that are well-written, but needed fleshing out in order to give it more weight. I'd be willing to see what else Jeff Hirsch writes in the future, but unfortunately this didn't quite tug at my heartstrings and interest enough to stick with me.

Overall score: 2/5

[Erica · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is my first time reading anything by this author and I definitely want to read more.

[Stephanie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Why do I love these post-apocalyptic books so much? And the zombies... I love zombies. This book doesn't have zombies but the world is in ruins after a world war and killer flu virus called P11, the Eleventh Plague. Stephen and his dad and grandpa have been surviving as salvagers, traversing the US from South to North and back again, collecting anything they can sell at the big camps in Canada and Florida. Things take a dramatic turn for the worse when grandpa dies suddenly and then dad gets hurt so badly that he falls into a coma. Luck finds Stephen and his father in the bottom of a ravine when some other survivors are searching the area. It turns out these people are from a place called Settlers' Landing where they have created a sanctuary of pre-Collapse America. They live in actual houses, go to school, have parks and playgrounds, and even celebrate Thanksgiving. Stephen is utterly dumb-founded and completely lost. He has never experienced life pre-Collapse and he longs to stay there and take the opportunity at a normal life. But the world is not what it was, and the sanctuary is not as safe as he thought.

I really hope there is a second book. The character of Jenny needs her own story.

[Christine · Rating 2 out of 5]

A fast read that's best suited for younger teens looking for a post-apocalyptic world setting.

The characters are young and act like it. There were several times when I rolled my eyes at their antics because they either didn't or couldn't grasp the situation outside their little community. That things were dire and life was hard, and playing pranks or acting out weren't going to get you anywhere.

For the most part Stephen was a good leading character. He's just trying to figure out where he belongs and what he should do after spending almost his entire life listening to his grandfather tell him what to do. He's growing into himself and doing the best he can, which I get, but there's a limit to how much immaturity I can take. Like with Jennifer. I didn't like Jennifer at all. I understand she had a hard life, but the way she was written made her bratty and insolent.

Overall, it wasn't great, but it was readable and made you think about what you would do if faced with a similar situation. I've read better post-apocalyptic books, but this works for younger teens since it has less gore.

[Kelly (and the Book Boar) · Rating 3 out of 5]

Find all of my reviews at: http://52bookminimum.blogspot.com/

Stephen has grown up in an America ravaged by war and plague. He has spent his life traveling with his father and grandfather as “salvagers” – picking up whatever they can to trade for items they need to survive. When Stephen’s grandfather dies and his father ends up in a coma after an accident, he finds himself taken in by a group of people trying to rebuild a true community. Struggling to fit in after a life of trusting no one, Stephen is embraced by some, but the target of others. Stephen and his new friend, Jenny, decide to pull a prank to get back at their tormenter, but the prank goes wrong, leading the people of Settler’s Landing fighting for their lives.

This was a buddy read with my favorite 12-year old. (Definition of “buddy reading” with my son: He takes a week or two to read the book, then goes to school and takes a quiz (Sidenote: I’m buddy reading the Truman Award Nominees with him – if he reads 4 or more he gets some kind of reward, if he reads all 12 he gets to party like it’s 1999. I just get to say I’m a middle-aged woman who reads books for pre-pubescents). After taking and passing the quiz, he comes home and then HOUNDS ME ALL FREAKING NIGHT LONG to “hurry and finish already so we can TAAAAAAAAAALLLLLLLK about it”. In addition, he’s a huge spoiler, so I seriously have about two hours to read a book before he starts blurting out anything and everything that is about to happen.)

Unfortunately, I had a bit of a problem with the plot. However, since I’m one million seven hundred thousand years old and this book wasn’t written for my demographic, these issues probably don’t even exist for middle-schoolers. I found the tale of a nomadic lifestyle migrating with the season changes across a desolate wasteland to be pretty awesome (my kid says “this part was sooooooo boring”). Add in the discovery of a “town” filled with people trying to recreate normalcy and I was still in (kid says “that’s when it started getting a little better”). Mix in a bit of drama, prank gone wrong, escalation to WE’RE ALL GONNA DIE annnnnnnnd you lost me (but, the kid says “oooooh, that’s when it was gooooood”).

Bonus – although a bit open ended, it does not appear that this will be part of a series (ugh how I hate how EVERYTHING has to be a freaking series!). I rarely like something that I know is part of a series enough to read more than the first book, so I appreciate that this does not say “#1 of the Plague Series” or some such nonsense after the title.

At the end of the day, “The Eleventh Plague” was a decent little book and I got through it (under duress) in no time at all. The kid says “it was more good than it was bad and it was pretty short so if you need to read Truman Books, I’d pick this one”. There you go. If you’re 12 and “kinda” want to read just enough to get credit for reading, this is a good choice. If you’re old and like reading post-apocalyptic children’s books, but don’t have a child of you own to help hide your shame, you can say this one is nominated for an award ; )

[Lauren · Rating 3 out of 5]

I kind of had higher hopes from this book. I read The Darkest Path by Jeff Hirsch and liked it, but it was also very average to me. That's what this book was like. I wouldn't re-read it. I don't think I'd necessarily recommend it, either, unless someone is looking for a very specific criteria that this book fits.
It had the opportunity to be a really great book with the dystopian plotline it put out, but it didn't seem to quite get there. I didn't particularly enjoy reading this book. It was okay, but I didn't like the main characters or the love plot. The female protagonist, Jenny...I really did not like her. I felt like the characters weren't very well developed. Not my favorite. I'd give it a 2.5 or 3 star rating out of 5 stars.

[Giselle · Rating 2 out of 5]

MEEEEEEH!

[Jennifer Rinehart · Rating 4 out of 5]

It was the front cover blurb from Suzanne Collins that caught my eye. I've read the Hunger Games three times and if Suzanne says this book is 'excellent' then it at least deserved a second look.

I grabbed it along with a copy of Touch of Frost by Jennifer Estep (which is super duper, btw) and found a place to sit down (which is a rare thing at Barnes and Noble nowadays) and started to read the first chapter.

From the first page I was drawn in. I don't like to make comparisons to other books, it's hard to do it well and people always squawk about it if the book compared is one they either love or hate, but Stephen, the main character reminds me a lot of Katniss from the Hunger Games. There's also a bit of Rose (from Vampire Academy), Marcus (from Little Brother and Nailer (from Shipbreaker). Like the characters from these other books, Stephen is a young person forced to deal with terrifyingly mature situations that could lead to dire situations for himself and others. How he rises to the challenge is what kept me reading through lunch then dinner without stopping.

Stephen's world is far different than the one we know now. His family are scavengers, think of the dead and rotting world in movies like Mad Max or Logan's Run and you wouldn't be far off. There was a war with China, then a plague and what's left of America lives in small settlements scattered throughout the country.

His small family are scavengers. His father, his brutish grandfather and Stephen roam what's left of the cities for tradeable items, something like a can of pears could allow them to have food and shelter for a week. But scavengers are not the only ones wandering the cities.

There are ex-military bandits, chinese troops and slavers and a whole part of the country is off limits, though his father sometimes talks about finding a place to settle down, raise crops, etc. But that would mean striking out into undiscovered country and leaving the trail with it's semblance of safety.

It is within this hopeless situation that everything turns from bad to worse, pretty much from the first page with a funeral. I wont tell you who dies, but the funeral seems to be the beginning of a chain of decisions, some good and some so completely bad, you'll wish you could step into the book to advise Stephen.

There's a lot of room for heroics, but Stephen is a reluctant hero, which is pretty much my favorite kind, kicking butt and taking names is for movies, Stephen seemed real to me, he didn't want to get involved in bad situations but sometimes you can't help it. Best of all, Stephen is an aware character, what I mean is, he knows he's making decisions that could be dreadful and he does it anyways. I guess I like that too, his decisiveness is refreshing.

My only complaint with the book is that it was kinda fast, before I knew it and was ready the book was done. I'm a fan of quick reads, but I can't help thinking there could have been a little more, more description, more worldbuilding, more story.

Oh well, guess I could read it again.

[Ming Wei · Rating 4 out of 5]

A well produced novel, imaginative, enthralling tight until the end, this book kept me interested right until the end, never got bored in its pages, the story doe not always follow the path that you expect when reading through its pages. Well written, no editorial issues, nice book cover, a good book.

[Heidi · Rating 3 out of 5]

I used to think the end of the world meant the end of everything. Now I know it just means the end of civilization. Stephen Quinn has never known government or society, he was born into a world thrown into chaos and decay by a costly war and the release of a deadly virus known as P11. P11, or the eleventh plague was dropped on the United States by the Chinese, who now control the lands west of the Rocky Mountains while the few survivors in the east subsist by salvage, slave trade, or other unsavory professions. To the Quinn family, the only way to survive is to keep moving, but when Stephen’s grandfather dies and his father endures potentially fatal wounds, they are for the first time in his life forced to stop moving. Stephen and his father are taken in by the small subsistence community of Settler’s Landing, but he knows from the start that he’s not completely welcome.

Dan Bittner’s narration of The Eleventh Plague by Jeff Hirsch, while not enough to make him a must listen narrator for me, is solid, well-done, and a certain boon to the book itself. I had seen several ‘meh’ reactions to this audio before tuning in, and I’m not sure if it was my lowered expectations, or the fact that I was very ‘meh’ about my own previous listen (Fever 1793), but I found myself much more easily drawn in and wrapped up in the story of The Eleventh Plague than I anticipated.

I love that Hirsch plops us down in a time after the so-called apocalypse has already occurred, but not so long after that it’s not remembered or healed. In my experience, this is a fairly unique standpoint, and reminded me a bit of Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid's Tale, which also takes place in a generation that can remember what society was like before. Stephen’s parents and grandfather were there for the release of P11 and the war, they experienced it all, and loved each other enough to bring a child into such a world regardless of the dangers. Stephen has never known any life other than that of a salvager, traveling from Canada to Florida on yearly trade routes, never taking the same path and never getting involved with the plights of others. When he and his father are brought into the community of Settler’s Landing, Stephen is like a skittish animal, unwilling to believe that he’s not up for slaughter. He’s never seen houses in use, slept on a real bed, or eaten three square meals a day. He has had notions and importance of family drilled into his head, but suddenly those definitions are challenged, and the concept of friends is also introduced. I felt that Hirsch did an excellent job of letting us into Stephen’s head during these foreign experiences, and the reactions of the people of Settler’s Landing, both welcoming and aggressive, seemed very real in the world’s current state.

The issue, however, was that I kept waiting for the real story to start–and then realized too late that this was it. When the book trailer has a tag line like “The only way to survive is to keep moving”, I expected Stephen to do just that. I expected he and Jenny to take off and survive on their own–I expected a survival story in general. This wasn’t really it. The Eleventh Plague certainly is a story of survival, but differently than I had anticipated (and kind of desired). It was more about the survival of civilized society and building the future than a more primitive sense of the word.

I also didn’t really feel the relationship between Stephen and Jenny. Something about the pacing of it just seemed…off. He’s instantly interested in her, but in a ‘she’s different’ kind of way, not a romantic kind of way. Jenny is constantly causing and getting into trouble, much of which is in her own defense, but her reactions constantly escalate matters. I felt as if there was no real development between the two of them, which would have been fine if it had been a more physical relationship, but it seemed suddenly as if Stephen didn’t want to live without this girl that was destroying the lives of everyone around her. As much as we got to be in Stephen’s head, I didn’t understand Jenny’s thought process at all. She seemed like your classic angry teen, but I couldn’t help being shocked that nobody ever screamed at her “You don’t know how good you have it!” She wants nothing more than to break free of Settler’s Landing, but as someone of Chinese decent, the outside world would be ten times more dangerous to her as the ‘enemy’ than it was to Stephen and his family. This is never addressed, and that surprised me. Some of the adults made little sense to me as well. I’ve never known any teacher who would give only half the participants in a fight detention, but maybe that’s just me.

These issues aside (the first of which I recognize is completely my own fault for my mindset prior to listening), I did enjoy listening to The Eleventh Plague. I appreciate it so much when this type of book exists as a stand alone, and always enjoy a good male point of view, which I feel Jeff Hirsch provided through the character Stephen. I loved that in a world that had fallen apart, the past and the future were coming together and blurring the lines between them to form the present. The Eleventh Plague is a haunting reflection on what a future of biochemical weapons could hold, how easily we fall apart, and what it takes to come together. It does, at times, get a bit frying pan heavy with the message, but not so much that I was knocked on the floor, and I did like the book as a whole.

Original review posted at Bunbury in the Stacks

[Olivia · Rating 5 out of 5]

A little slow at the beginning, but once you get past that, it is a good book. Would recommend

[Cassia Schaar · Rating 2 out of 5]

If you're considering reading this because you think it'll be a high action survival story about an epidemic, walk away now. The Eleventh Plague is basically click-bait for books. It's blurbed by Suzanne Collins and everything. And yet....it's neither high action OR about an epidemic. Most of the book isn't even about survival! What bothered me most is that the inciting incident promised on the back cover didn't happen until I was about 60% through. That incident then triggered the CLIMAX of all things. Ugh.
It wasn't poorly written though—actually there were quite a few quotable lines—and there were some really great scenes that made some very important critiques on society. Those themes though seemed better fit in a literary novel that would be studied in school than in a YA dystopia.
So overall, it wasn't a BAD read per-say....I just found it slow and predictable with a lot of poorly fulfilled promises.

[Michelle Siena · Rating 5 out of 5]

Probably one of the best post-apocalyptic books I've read in a while(: Reminds me of the show "Revolution," you should check them both out!

[ExLibris_Kate · Rating 5 out of 5]

I admit that this book first caught my attention because it was blurbed by Suzanne Collins. So, being the loyal Hunger Games fangirl that I am, I thought that I should give this book a try and I am so glad that I did. I am a fan of the dystopian sub-genre and I have noticed that the type of dystopia that is the scariest is the world that is most plausible. The Eleventh Plague takes place in the not too distant future where an unsteady global economy and diplomatic breakdowns with China caused a world war that unleashed nuclear weapons and genetically engineered plagues that basically destroyed the entire social and political structure of the United States. Stephen and what's left of his family, travel back and forth across the country, avoiding rogue army units and "slavers", scavenging what they can to trade for what they need to survive. I was immediately chilled by the set up because the human race had so easily fallen apart and a new and terrifying normal just accepted. Society has been sent back to the Dark Ages, as the saying goes, and the giants of the modern era (Wal Marts and big SUVs) are only as good as what can be reaped from them for trade.

The world that Jeff Hirsch creates is so terrifying that when Stephen meets people from Settler's Landing, a gated community like so many others we've seen, the simple act of helping a stranger seems completely foreign to him. The descriptions of the community with its restored neighborhoods and attempts to rebuild a structured life are both eerie and comforting. I loved the contrast between the brutal world of the first half of the book and the insulated suburban society of Settler's Landing. It would have been easy for Stephen to simply accept his new life and settle down, but the only thing he has ever known is uncertainly and he really struggles with an existence that doesn't involve constant fear and movement. When he meets Jenny, the adopted Chinese daughter of his rescuers, he sees in her a part of himself because she is an outsider, as well. I found their relationship so interesting because it seemed that knowing each other allowed them to admit that perhaps there were parts of their lives that they really did care about and wanted to preserve. The story deals with a lot of hefty ideas, such as war, racism, free will and justice. Most of all, this book is about the small glimmer of hope that is always there, even if it takes a monumental effort to find it.

[Kim Ammons (youthbookreview) · Rating 3 out of 5]

3 out of 5 stars

It feels harsh, but this post-apocalyptic book is just largely forgettable. By that I mean, I’ve already forgotten most of it.

Stephen Quinn and his father are salvagers in a desolate world, and they have just had to bury Stephen’s grandfather. Unfortunately for them, Stephen’s grandfather was largely responsible for keeping the three of them alive, because he was extremely tough and restricting. So, without getting too spoiler-y, let’s just say that Stephen’s father does not make quite the same survivalist decisions without Grandfather Quinn around. The two end up in a village that has tried its hardest to recreate the world pre-apocalypse.

So what does that mean?

We get a huge chunk of this post-apocalyptic book taking place in a pretty everyday setting. Stephen goes to school. Stephen plays baseball. Stephen makes friends. Stephen finds a love interest (Jenny). They break some rules together. Stephen plays more baseball with his friends. Stephen goes to school some more.

What was I reading?!

Okay, I get it. I’m not trying to argue that a place like this couldn’t exist in a post-apocalyptic world. People are latching onto whatever semblance of the past they can, and in this case, it’s parents recreating the school days and pastimes of their childhood. They want their kids to grow up in a world as close to their own as possible. But that’s not what I want to read about when I pick up a novel like this.

So, in short, it was boring. I thought the ending was lackluster and I never felt any sense of climax or urgency to what was happening. I did quite like Jenny, but even she felt more like a plot device at times than an actual character. But, to the book’s credit, it was a very light, fast read. The writing was nothing special, but it kept my interest and I didn’t dislike it…I just didn’t like it, either. It was pretty meh.

(Review cross-posted on Youth Book Review)

[Charleen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Stephen Quinn has grown up in a post-apocalyptic United States. The U.S. has been ravaged by war with China, a plague and the systemic fall of society as we know it. The military has turned to human trafficking and slavery, human decency is at an all time low and there is no one to trust but yourself. Stephen has just lost his grandfather, and his father has fallen down and is gravely injured. It is up to Stephen to keep his father and himself safe and try to find shelter. Then he meets people that have form a town and he must decide whether he can trust them and be the hero they need or go back to being the scavenger he and his father are.

It’s impossible not to compare this book to The Road by Cormac McCarthy. Both books are about a father and son in a ravaged land trying to survive. But, whereas The Road is about the father and his relationship and great love for the kid, The Eleventh Plague is about the son, the way he has grown up in this ravaged world and his hope for a semblance of a family and a future.

The book is very good and I read it rather quickly. The narrative was beautiful. Jeff Hirsch is quite talented at writing visual narrative. I could just picture the glint of the gold ring each time Stephen remembered his grandfather hitting him. Hirch also created great and compelling characters. The books goes incredibly fast and before you know it you are done. Although the author does give you a lot of information about the United States, the war, what has been happening, I can’t help but feel it was half formed. I wish we had learned more about the Chinese occupants in the West. There is a lot of potential there. I guess the author could use the character of Jenny to explore that angle.

This books is marked as a young-adult book but everyone will enjoy it. It is very good.

[AH · Rating 2 out of 5]

Free audio book download week of June 14 - June 20 - http://www.audiobooksync.com/ (Good in US/Can/Mexico)

I listened to the audio book and perhaps my enjoyment of this book was marred by a "meh" reader. The Eleventh Plague is the story of what happens after a flu strain kills most of the population. It was an OK story for me. Perhaps I am just reading and listening to way too many dystopian/post apocalyptic books that this one did not stand out for me.

When my son finishes listening to this, I'll add his thoughts as I think it is geared more to kids his age.

[AlexB_E2 · Rating 2 out of 5]

The book was ok. The title is a bit misleading because its actually set after the plague, not during it. The ending isn't satisfying special or cool in any way. I finished the book saying "meh". I'm also not a big fan of post apocalyptical books so if you like that kind of stuff, you will probably like this.

[Ashton Noel · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is not something I would have picked up on my own. I did this for a reading challenge for a book group I participate in. Historically I do not enjoy dystopian stories and with everything going on in the world maybe I would have been better off choosing a zombie book. This is about America after a war and an influenza epidemic that has killed most of the population and left the rest to deal with survival in the aftermath of the downfall of society. Murderers, scavengers, and some trying to keep a semblance of society it was like most dystopian novels or movies out there. I do feel it was well written and the story definitely seems to speak to a younger audience. Unfortunately this just isn't subject matter I enjoy thus the 3 star rating.

[Isabella · Rating 4 out of 5]

would love to see a full series! 😉

[Dóra · Rating 2 out of 5]

they could make a great film out of this book. for me it was a little bit too american but it was nice.

[Joy (joyous reads) · Rating 5 out of 5]

There wasn’t much left of America; there wasn’t much left of the world, for that matter. Civilization finally did what it had been trying to do for years – it exterminated itself by waging war against each other. Hunger, famine and a strain of a deadly flu virus took out what was left of the population until the only ones that survived were the strong, determined that humanity will flourish again.

This is the story of Stephen Quinn, a fifteen year old boy, who suddenly found himself alone after burying his heavy-handed grandfather and his father falling into a coma soon after.

The title alone should tell you that this book isn’t about rainbows and unicorns. Surprisingly, I didn’t have a difficulty reading the depressing situations that Stephen kept finding himself in. I think the saddest part was when he realized he was alone and he had to fight to live with what he had left, which was next to nothing, really. There were some violence but not as gruesome as some of the dystopian books I’ve read as of late.

Stephen has a great voice as a character. It was easy to feel what he was going through, even much more easier to root for this boy. He was strong, smart and wasn’t a trusting person but that was understandable. Though his father was in coma throughout most of the book, I loved the relationship he had with him. The flashbacks certainly helped.

Jenny was Stephen’s romantic counterpart. This girl was very angry. She’s one of those characters that are probably an acquired taste. You’ll either love her or hate her. For me, she was definitely admirable but I can’t say that I loved her or hated her – on the fence, I guess is the right way to describe how I felt about Jenny.

The world that Jeff Hirsh created was garishly vivid. I saw the earth’s destruction with every page, the mounds of freshly dug graves, each gaunt appearance of the starved and the sick. Settler’s Landing reminded me of The Village movie, guarded and aloof from the rest of the world. For Stephen, Settler’s Landing represented hope and home and never having to fight for each scrap for him to trade.

Over all, this story was about finding family, friends, strength, love and optimism where hopelessness thrived. I absolutely loved this book. Though, I might be a little biased because The Eleventh Plague is my kind of story :) No matter. With Jeff Hirsh’s clear, to the point, and concise writing, I say there was no way this book was going to get an unfavorable review from me anyway.

[Shellie Sukhakanya · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Eleventh Plague is a post-apocalyptic world told from a male’s perspective which is a great change up from being told from a female’s (don’t get me wrong I love my female characters but nice to see a change every now and then). Stephen, our main character, has never known what the real world was like because he was born 5 years after the virus the Chinese dropped on the US during war, P11, that took out majority of the population. He has always been a scavenger trying to find anything worth enough to trade on the trail for the survival of not only himself but his father and grandfather as well.

It starts off immediately facing death and how to deal with that during this new world that they are in. His father is badly injured and regardless of what he has been taught his whole life he takes the help that is offered to him and ends up in Settler’s Landing. Everybody has dealt with the Collapse different than others, some have been trading and always on the go while some have tried to put things back together again, and other taking people captive and destroying more things. Settler’s Landing is what his father has always hoped the world could go back to and a place that his grandfather told him never to wish for.

The characters were decently written. Stephen, while he tried the best with what was given to him, would be on one track and then bam…he’s on another and going against what he was determined to do. It seems that he was always internally fighting with himself, which we all do, but seemed that everything he did was not his choice. There are a lot of side characters within this town but the ones that stood out the most to me was Violet, the mother of Jackson and Jenny, and Jenny. I wish that there was more about Jackson but there was enough of a friendship there to get me along. Jenny was just a spitfire. She had her own mind made up and wouldn’t change it for the world. Violet was the town nurse and would take in anyone and tried to make things the best that she could given what she was dealt with.

I would love to say that I liked this book more than I did. It was a little too slow paced for me in the beginning to really get into but I’m glad that I stuck with it and finished it because it did pick up quickly about page 190ish and there were some adrenaline pumping scenes that had you grasping for more. The ending for me was a meh moment because there was so much building up and then boom another change in the plot. I did enjoy it but it wasn’t the best that I’ve read so far.

[Lee Ann · Rating 4 out of 5]

In October I attended a This is Teen event because author Maggie Stiefvater was going to be there. Two other authors also participated, and one of them was Jeff Hirsch, author of The Eleventh Plague. Honestly, I decided to read it because The Hunger Games author, Suzanne Collins is quoted on the book jacket as saying, "The Eleventh Plague hits disturbingly close to home...An excellent, taut debut novel."

If you've read The Hungers Games then you know that Collins is no-joke when it comes to the harsh realities of what our world would be like if it was destroyed by disasters of nature and mankind. Based upon my experience with her books, I felt like Hirsch's book would be worth a try. It turns out, Collins was right. While Hirsch's world isn't as disturbing (no televised fights to the death between children), you will find yourself in an America you recognize.

This time, the US has been decimated by a deadly sickness known as "the Eleventh Plague," and the country is a barren wasteland. Following the plague, was "the Collapse" when the government, businesses, hospitals, and the military fell. Our protagonist is a 15-year-old boy, Stephen, who was born after the Collapse. He and his father have just buried Stephen's grandfather, and they are faced with a choice. Stephen's grandfather ran their trio strictly, and the family kept on the move. Others were not to be trusted, and everything was done with one purpose in mind—survival. Eventually, Stephen finds himself in charge of their destiny; and now is when you should go to a library or bookstore and pick this one up.

For those concerned about exposing young readers to graphic elements, I say don't worry. This is far less violent than The Hunger Games series. What amazed me the most was the way this made me think about human nature and the things we regress to and cling to in dire times. I also loved the imagery Hirsch conjured for me with two of my favorite lines from The Eleventh Plague:

"There was nothing at his back but thirty feet of open air and, beyond that, the bared fangs of a raging river."

"I dug my thumbnail into the soft wood at the edges of the table and wondered if it was true, if she really would come back or if there would be a time when that rubber band stretched as far as it could and would snap, releasing her into the world, never to return."

[Kimberly · Rating 4 out of 5]

Enjoyed this book so much. It ranks high up there with any of the dystopia/end of the world because of a virus or zombies books. This one did not have zombies featured, instead a virus known as P11(Eleventh Plague) took most of the worlds population with the exception of a few as you usually see in these stories.

You see things from a teenager's point of view, in this book. Through his trails, losing his family, learning how to live without them in this harsh and cruel world. Who to trust, who not, when to act, when not ect..From being born into this world, and trying to survive along with his father, to becoming a father himself.
I highly recommend this for anyone! Teens and adults will love this one.

[Brandon · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is great for anyone who loves horror stories. The book is about a plague that sweeps across America and kills almost everyone. The book also has many fights. For example, the most intense fight is when the town of Settlers Landing and the Henrys have a battle. The book also has many sad moments. A very sad moment in the book is when the main character’s dad dies. I would give this book a 10 out of 10 because I love books that are action-packed.

[Janette]

I enjoyed this book until I got to the part where we meet the power hungry religious guy, and then I sighed and thought: Great, yet another book where Christians are demonized. And it pretty much was. It's gotten so bad in literature that if a character quotes scripture you can be pretty sure s/he will turn out to be either a villainous hypocrite or a fool.