Carrier

by Vanessa Garden

For fans of The Walking Dead and The Hunger Games comes a YA novel about freedom, choice and family — and the terrifying disease that makes them mutually exclusive.

From the day she was born, Lena has viewed the world through the jagged window of a razor-wired fence. The hundred-acre property she shares with her mother in the Australian outback may keep her safe from the Y-Carrier disease, but it is no longer enough to hold Lena’s interest, and her mother’s increasingly tight grip on her free will is stifling.

Just as her curiosity blooms and her courage rises, she meets a boy through the fence — the first boy she has ever laid eyes on. His name is Patrick and he comes with a dangerous yet irresistible invitation of adventure beyond the fence, an invitation to which Lena cannot say no.

But Lena’s newfound freedom is short-lived and she soon discovers that the Y-Carrier disease is not the only enemy she faces on the outside. Her new enemies want something Lena has, and they are willing to do anything to get it...

Genres: Young Adult, Dystopia, Science Fiction, Post Apocalyptic, Fiction, Suspense, Australia

175 pages, Kindle Edition

First published March 1, 2014

About the author

A bookseller and Young Adult author, Vanessa loves nothing more than immersing herself in the exciting world of books. When she is not raving about her favourite reads with customers, or mentally casting actors to play the characters in her next novel, she enjoys hanging out with those she loves most.

Reviews

[JusMe · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love Vanessa's style of writing, I am hooked. Amazing characters, fantastic plot. This was a short book but there was a lot packed into it, the book did not feel rushed and it drew me in. I really would like to see and read more of this and find out what happens in the future for Lena, Patrick, Petra, Sammy, Sapphire and family and for those who left. I am really hoping there is going to be another book

[Tsana Dolichva · Rating 5 out of 5]

Carrier by Vanessa Garden is the first book I've read by the author, although her (unrelated) début novel came out not too long ago. Carrier is a short novel released by Escape Publishing, the ebook-only arm of Harlequin AU. And it is pretty short, even for YA, but it packs a significant punch despite its light weight (or perhaps because of it).

I really enjoyed this book. The Australian setting was, of course, something I like to see and the story was fresh and different. Being a short book it was relatively fast-paced but didn't feel rushed at any point. Mostly the pacing meant that Lena didn't have much time to relax before the next disaster/major event (except for at the very end, but I'll get to that).

Lena has spent her whole life living on a fenced-off property with her mum. Her family fled to the desert after/during an epidemic struck Australia (and it helped that Perth had the warning of the East Coast going first, in terms of getting away prepared and while it was still relatively safe). The disease, Y-Carrier, infects both men and women, but infected men only develop a permanent rash, while women die a rapid and painful death. Predictably, there aren't many women left around, and those that are are highly sought after by, well, all the men in different ways. Out in the desert seventeen years after the disease first struck, Lena and her mother still fear men who might be Carriers (and, particularly in the case of Lena's Mum whose more aware of these things, they fear violet gang rapes like a couple that happened off the page before the story begins). Although the text doesn't explore the issue in great detail, I found the new-era gender politics it did touch upon interesting; in a world of mostly men women are both very vulnerable and very powerful.

When Lena first meets a boy she is fascinated by him because she has literally never met anyone other than her mother and her now-deceased father and cousin Alice. Usually insta-love in YA is irritating, but in this case it's more insta-fascination (on Lena's part anyway) and didn't really bother me until the very end (although even then I still think it made sense).

Sick of being cooped up with her mother, when Lena finally leaves her adventures end up being not quite what she (or I) expected. It's always nice to be surprised by books that don't quite fit the existing mould. I don't want to go into too much detail on this because spoilers, but I will say that as well as some of the events in the middle being not quite as predicted, the ending is very un-Hollywood. (Well, unless you define Hollywood as "full of special effects", then perhaps we can call it non-traditional.) This is the second non-US-authored YA book I've read recently where the ending was bittersweet. I can see some readers being disappointed by the ending for this reason — and also possibly because some weird stuff happens during the climax, but that at least was definitely foreshadowed — but for me it worked and felt more "right" than any of the obvious alternatives.

As I said, I enjoyed Carrier a lot. It was the first book I read this year that made me excited enough while reading to give it five stars. It's self-contained, but I certainly wouldn't object to reading more in this world, perhaps a book set several years down the line when some children we meet in Carrier would be teenagers. Either way, I highly recommend Carrier to fans of YA post-apocalyptic/dystopian fiction. Carrier isn't dystopian (there aren't enough people around for any concrete flavour of civilisation, let alone any sort of government), but I know that the two sub-genres have a lot of cross-appeal. I would particularly recommend it to readers looking for a slightly different take on the post-apocalyptic narrative.

5 / 5 stars

You can read more of my reviews on my blog.

[Anatea Oroz · Rating 1 out of 5]

This review is also posted on my blog, Anatea's Bookshelf.

When I started reading Carrier, I definitely didn't think there was a possibility of me not liking it. With reading Vanessa Garden's debut novel Captivate a while ago, which I absolutely loved, and with a great promise "For fans of The Walking Dead and The Hunger Games comes a YA novel about freedom, choice and family", I really wasn't expecting to be disappointed by Carrier, but I was. Maybe I was lead by assumption that this book will include zombies and that it will be action packed or maybe I just set to high expectations. Either way, the truth is this book didn't deliver what was promised.

Set in a dystopian world in Australian outback, Lena is spending her whole life cut from the rest of the world surrounded with razor-wired fence, her only friends her two dogs. Then one night, something happens and her mother shuts into herself. Lena meets a boy, Patrick, and decides to leave her home and set on adventure, not caring about the danger that Y-Carrier disease brings and that she could get killed.

Where to begin? The worldbuilding in this novel was poorly done, and while we did get some of our questions answered, mostly all of it was done in the end of the book by a paranormal twist which you could see coming from the beginning. I feel like this novel could go without the paranormal and it was unnecessary to bring it into the novel. Actually, the last 20% of the book didn't make any sense at all, and the ending just made everything even worse.

I couldn't connect with any of the characters, actually I don't know if I can say anything about them except that I didn't really get them, or their actions for that matter, and that I couldn't see any development in them. For some of the characters I don't know why they even appeared in the story. The romance was very insta, with not much development in that area either. Lena sees a boy for the first time, I guess that means she's in love, the same goes for Patrick too.

With all said, I am very sorry I didn't like Carrier as I really loved Vanessa Garden's debut, but I guess this just means that we can't like every book we read, even if it's a book by an author whose work we liked previously.

[Aussie bookworm · Rating 5 out of 5]

A great new twist to the Zombie Novel, Instead of Zombies the world was over run with a disease that made males a carrier and women would get infected and die horribly, It is an extremely dangerous time for women with not many left in the world. Lena lives in outback Australia with her mother, Her house is a Jail with her Mother the warden. Lena is not allowed to leave their yard after her older cousin Alice tried to run away one night and was brutally murdered by a group of men.

Lena’s mother is a kick arse woman but becomes horribly overbearing and protective of Lena which would be understandable considering that most of the male population is out to get them.

Lena feels trapped and wants to leave and have more freedom and she gets her chance when a boy her own age shows up one night while her mother is out hunting searching for his lost father.

Patrick is left to fend for himself and his little brothers after his father vanishes, he can’t hunt very well because he has poor eyesight but he is instantly attracted to Lena mostly for the fact she is the only girl he has seen since the outbreak.

Lena decides to leave with him and have an adventure to meet his younger brothers, on the way they are attacked and sent to a community of survivors.

I loved how this book is set in Outback Australia, you ask most people around here where would you go when the shit hits the fan and most will say go bush. The Outback is so huge, although it would be hard to survive out there on your own it is vast enough to vanish and not be bothered by others.

The alive diseased was a nice break from the dead zombies, it gave them more of a human quality instead of being dead mindless Zombies they were alive and thinking just they carried a disease that when they come in contact with females the female would die a horrible death.

There are also Science fiction elements in the story but not to overshadow too much I really enjoyed the mix of genres apocalyptic, Dystopia , Sci fi and Romance. It is a story about survival and family in the worst times and I could not say a bad thing about it except that I want more.

[Carrie Slager · Rating 4 out of 5]

[Full disclosure: I received a free ebook through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.]

If you’re thinking this is a zombie book, I’ve got news for you: it’s not. You never, ever see a zombie. No, instead this is something a lot more interesting, something that hasn’t really been done before.

We have Lena, a seventeen-year-old girl who has lived only with her mother and cousin, fearing what lurks beyond the fence that keeps the family safe. Now that her cousin Alice is dead it’s just Lena and her mother and the two, like quite a few teenage daughters and mothers can’t stand each other. Lena wants to get out and explore the world. It’s been a while since she’s seen a Carrier (only males carry the disease but they live; females die from the disease) and she wants to go out and explore. She knows how to hunt from killing rabbits inside the fence but her mother refuses to let her go. So when she sees a boy she decides to make her move.

Now I know all of this sounds pretty cliché but I can assure you that there are quite a few plot twists along the way. The plot is incredibly fast-paced and just when you think you know what’s going to happen, Vanessa Garden changes everything on you. At the same time, the plot twists actually make sense within the context of the story. They’re not totally out in left field, I promise.

The characters are by far the best part of the novel, especially Lena. She’s strong and determined but not afraid to admit she’s out of her element when she meets Patrick. He’s the first boy she’s ever seen (aside from her magazine crush) and you can guess how much awkwardness ensues. And the thing is that the awkwardness is believable. They’re two teenagers that have had exactly zero experience with the opposite sex. What do you expect to happen, really?

Overall, Carrier was a pretty good novel. It didn’t have the ‘wow’ factor that Vanessa Garden’s first book Captivate did but it’s a good standalone novel. It doesn’t release until March 1, but if you’re at all intrigued by the blurb or my review I think this is the book for you. It’s certainly worth a try.

I give this book 4/5 stars.

[Sarah · Rating 3 out of 5]

The plot of this entertaining and well written novel starts out as a straightforward post-apocalyptic adventure but soon evolves into something completely different, with plenty of interesting twists along the way. I enjoyed the story and characters, particularly the realistically naive and reckless teenage romance, but wish it could have been longer and more substantial. This is a short book, which is both refreshing and problematic. There's nothing extraneous here, and the fast paced plot is gripping, with moments of chilling tension. There's little space for character development and world building though. The minor characters are all well drawn through pitch-perfect dialogue and description, but I felt that I simply didn't see enough of them to care about what happened to them at climactic moments. The scenario of a world where women are being wiped out by a deadly virus, spread by men, is a great concept and while it forms an interesting background to the story, I was frustrated by how little the potential of this premise was explored. The various settings are barely introduced before the narrative moves on, and I would have liked more development of all these potentially intriguing places. The epilogue also feels rushed - the protagonist's passage through the deserted city of Perth is covered in a few lines, as is her survival for months on fish alone - this could have been an entire book on its own. The story seems complete but I would love to see a sequel, as there is so much possibility for development of this world. There are a few obvious grammatical errors in the review copy I have which will hopefully be corrected in the published edition (strange, because the writing is otherwise very polished). Despite the issues I had with some aspects of the book, I think that it deserves to do well the Australian YA market. The Australian setting and short length make it the sort of book I would recommend to many of my students, particularly those who are put off by longer books but want quality writing and plotting.

[K · Rating 5 out of 5]

I am a giant fan of post-apocalyptic and dystopian situations with prowling zombies and civilisation disintegrating with a limited group of survivors attempting to flee rampage and chaos. I truly enjoyed Vanessa Garden’s Carrier because of this. The Australian setting that the book was placed in was something I loved and the plot was fresh and diverse from many others in the same sort of genre. As it is a short book, it was moderately fast-paced and a quick read but honestly did not feel rushed at any point while reading it.

Within the first couple of chapters, I was instantaneously captivated with the premise. The novel’s tone was chilling and impressive. Garden truly paints a suffocating and eerie tone for the Australian outback and there is the reoccurring sense of desperateness and isolation that floods the book. Though, I did wish that there was more info on how the infection and the following outbreak spread originally.

Carrier is positively an impressive and edgy read. I enjoyed the novel mostly due to the appealing protagonist and the blatantly eerie scenery that Garden paints. I highly recommend Carrier to fans of YA post-apocalyptic/dystopian fiction.

An Advanced Readers Copy of the book was provided by the publisher in return for an honest review.

[Alina Valentine · Rating 5 out of 5]

Carrier was a great refreshing read. I had stayed away from YA for a while because it became very predictable. But Vanessa Garden managed to make this story very exciting and fast paced without rushing through it. The twists at the end were great, she made it work. I recommend this to anyone who loves strong heroines.

[NicoleHasRead · Rating 4 out of 5]

Review coming to readinglark.blogspot.com on March 5th.

[Lauredhel · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars

There was a great setup for this book, hitting all my buttons: plague novel, set in Australia, young adult.

Lena is a girl locked in an outback property with her Mum and two pet dingoes, and kept in by fear of Carriers outside the fences. Y-Carrier disease has swept Australia. It kills women, but only infects men, leaving them with a rash and a deadly cargo. As the story goes on, it appears that this apocalypse seems to have happened while Lena was in utero.

Lena is a teenager now, and she's got itchy feet. For the first time in her life, she meets a boy, through the fence - Patrick She discovers her dead cousin Alice's diary, waxing lyrical about a mysterious Markus. And she finds out that her mother has killed a man. Lena decides to climb the fence, join Patrick, and find out what the outside world holds. Danger, romance, and action ensues - but no spoilers!

I was very interested in Lena's journey, what it might be like to see a boy for the first time as a teenager (this makes the insta-love a little more believable, I think), and how she would deal with the fear of infection and the dread of meeting people outside the fence, whose motivations are unclear.

I was less interested in the alien/paranormal storyline, which was infodumped near the end of the book without any of the mystery or gradual unfolding that would have drawn me in. I found it (even as a fantasy reader) very difficult to suspend disbelief and go with it. I felt it could have been entirely expunged from the book, leaving more time to explore the human issues. There were also some clunky phrasings and similes that sometimes stopped me from sinking into the story. Lastly, I was really annoyed by the brief Magical Aboriginal Person motif, a girl called Sapphire, who didn't affect the story in any meaningful way. This felt to me like an empty nod to Australia's Aboriginal population, in a story which really could have used some

As a real-world plague story, with more fleshing out and exploration of characters, I think I could have loved it.

I would definitely pick up another book by Garden.

[Vanessa Garden]

Hey there, fellow book lovers!
It's the eve of CARRIER's release and I am so excited to share Lena and Patrick's story with you! CARRIER was an absolute joy to write and each night I could hardly wait to sit in front of my laptop and throw myself back into the beautifully harsh Australian outback to see how Lena was faring on her epic journey.
I'm hoping you'll laugh, cry and perhaps even feel an uneasy prickle at the back of your neck while reading. But most of all, I hope you'll fall in love with Lena and Patrick and champion them on their quest for freedom.
Enjoy!
ps: If you're wondering why I gave myself 5 stars, please blame Aticon - he used his mind-control and made me do it! (If you're wondering who Aticon is, you'll have to read Carrier to find out ;D)

[Amanda Woolley · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wow this book was different but in a good way. The ending was a little dissapointing leaving the reader hanging (kind of hoping that may have been left open for more to come

[Charlotte (novelsandteacups) · Rating 3 out of 5]

I thought Carrier would be something I would really enjoy, the plot was good to start off with a plague and finding trying to find the possibility of what it may have been that caused it to happen. However for me I thought up to end part the book I felt like it was abit disappointing, and there was still a lot of questions that hadn't been answered.

[Sarah Elizabeth · Rating 2 out of 5]

(Source: I received a digital copy of this book for free on a read-to-review basis. Thanks to Harlequin Enterprises Australia and netgalley.)
16-year-old Lena lives in a dystopian world where men carry a disease which kills women. When Lena meets a boy for the first time she quickly falls in love, and decides to risk everything to be with him.


This was an okay story, but I lost interest.

Lena was an okay character but I didn't love her. Her decisions seemed rash and not well thought out, and she was so eager to go with Patrick it was ridiculous.

The storyline was okay, but it just fell a bit flat. The world building wasn't good, Lena's mother let her go far too easily after protecting her for so long, and I was really unimpressed with Lena when she didn't tell Patrick the truth about his father.
The romance happened very quickly, and I just wasn't a fan.

The ending was likewise pretty poor and the culprits the aliens were an absolute joke! we may have killed you all, but we didn't really mean to, let's be friends is a freaking lame excuse, and the situation Lena was left in was pretty pants too.
Overall; not a fan,
4.5 out of 10.

[Kelly (Diva Booknerd) · Rating 3 out of 5]

http://www.divabooknerd.com/2014/03/c...
Carrier started brilliantly, the premise of a teen girl being confined to her home, a rampant virus killing the female population and the mystery of Patrick immersed me within the storyline. But sadly the final few short chapters felt as though the story was verging on the ridiculous. It left me feeling deflated, as though two different books had been merged together. I'm not generally big on criticism, but with a rewritten ending, a longer and more drawn out storyline, this book could easily be a five star read.

I really enjoyed Vanessa Garden's Captivate, and this one has the potential to surpass. I would love to see it further developed. But as is, I can't see too many readers appreciating the ending.

[Jana at ThatArtsyReaderGirl.com · Rating 3 out of 5]

Find my full review at That Artsy Reader Girl.

All in all, the premise and the setting were the two strong points. The execution was disappointing, and I don’t even feel like this book is from the same author as the one who wrote Captivate. There was no magic, and I guess that’s what I was looking for. I’m still a fan of Vanessa Garden, though, and cannot wait for the next book in the Submerged Sun series!

[Josie Carter · Rating 4 out of 5]

I loved this story

I cried and worried over these characters . I plan on reading more of your books as soon as I'm done with review lol!

[Jessica · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not what I was expecting at the end but it wasn't a bad story.