The Last Days - Scott Westerfeld

The Last Days - Scott Westerfeld

Pages: 254
Publisher: Atom
Release Date: 2nd August 2007

Other Titles by this Author: Uglies (my review), Pretties (my review), Specials (my review), Extras (my review), Parasite Positive (my review), The Midnighters Trilogy

Something evil is bubbling under New York. People are going crazy and vampires stalk the streets. For Pearl, Moz and Zahler, life goes on and all that matters is their new band. As the city reels under a mysterious epidemic, the three combine their talents with a vampire lead singer and a drummer whose fractured mind can see the coming darkness. Will their music stave off the growing danger? Or summon it?

Set against the gritty apocalypse that began in Parasite Positive, The Last Days is about five teenagers who find themselves creating the soundtrack for the end of the world.

The Last Days is the fantastic companion novel to Parasite Positive. I absolutely loved it.

I was blown away by Moz, Pearl, Zahler, Alana Ray and Minerva’s passion for music. Having not a musical bone in my body, I could only admire their love and dedication for the music that they were creating. I loved that they believed that they could do anything, even save the world, through playing their guitars, keyboards and singing their hearts out. Music is an amazing and very powerful thing and did everything that they hoped it would.

All of the characters were very different, but my favourite was Alana Ray. Her logical thoughts and immense self-control really clashed with the condition that made her nervous and jittery, but an excellent drummer. But what I loved most was how Alana Ray saw music. She saw ripples and waves of colour that merged and folded into shapes, revealing what’s hidden under New York City’s surface. The other characters that I really liked were Zahler and his funny vocabulary - ‘fool’, ‘fexcellent’ and ‘fawesome’ and the reappearance of Cal, Lace and Dr Prolix from Parasite Positive.

In Parasite Positive we heard from a carrier of the parasite and the outside view of the Peeps but in The Last Days we hear from the Peeps themselves. The differences between what is seen and what actually goes on inside their heads. It just demonstrated that however much we think we know about someone, we’ll never completely understand somebody else.

I've loved all of Scott Westerfeld’s novels and The Last Days was no exception. I highly recommend all of his fabulous books.

Sophie