No one’s conscience escapes unscathed from war, not even a loving mother and shelterer of freedom fighters. I found Rehana’s story hard to get into at first, and I recommend other readers brief themselves on Bangladesh’s fight for liberation before digging in. With a little patience I did grow to care about Rehana, her son and daughter, and her various friends and neighbors.
The end of the Hunger Games trilogy is as good as the first two and is the rare book that lives up to its hype. In this future dystopia one doesn't go to war without a camera crew.
Staying alive is what we did to pass the time. p.155
Another "horrible-alternate-world-scenario" suggestion from Julie the teen librarian, How I Live Now isn't a high tech horror story like Feed. It's scarier because it's far more realistic. The 15-year-old protagonist, a New Yorker with n eating disorder and a wicked stepmother finds herself vacationing with her cousins (one of the kissing variety) in England when war breaks out. Their house gets "sequestered," and children get separated by gender. The rest of the story is of their survival and how they find one another again.