Red hill

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Reading Log

RED HILL

Anna Rudkovskaia



Summary

What happens when a virus spreads and comes in every home and then turns ordinary people into mindless man-eating monsters? Through the eyes of three very different characters we explore the human condition when faced with unexpected horrors and see what it takes to realize that our life will never be the same. zomby love character

The story comes alive from Scarlet, Nathan and Miranda. With each of them at different stages of their life, they each have a different perspective to the unfolding horrors. But they and their companions are all trying their hardest to survive in the world going to hell around them.

Love takes the center stage in “Red Hill”. Love of a parent for their children, when Scarlet was in desperate trying to find her daughters; love for your partner, when Nathan watched Scarlet every day sat at the porch hoping her children to come back, he was ready to wait her to respond his feelings with patience; love for all humanity when the end is near.

First we have Scarlet, divorced, single mom with two daughters. She is an x-ray tech in a local hospital. While working her Friday shift, she notices that things are starting to get a little weird. Scarlet doesn't know yet that it's probably the last day she saw her children. People are coming into the hospital after being bitten by other people. Scarlet finds herself right in the pandemic breakout epicentre. When the news about the mass chaos reaches her, she races hurriedly in the direction of her husband's home as her beloved daughters Jenna and Halle are spending their weekend time with their father. She wants to take them to Red Hill, her co-worker and friend's country farmhouse. She knows this ranch is the safest place for her and her children. But Scarlet has to find a way to get to her daughters first.

Nathan is an office worker. He is a young father with an almost broken marriage. Every day wasted at work and a wife who hates him makes his existence miserable. Only his young daughter Zoe makes coming home worthwhile. His wife Aubrey not used to be like that before; she used to be a nice girl who loved him so much. But when they had Zoe something happened. Aubrey quit her job to stay home with their child Zoe so Nathan was the only source of income in their family. Aubrey was just sitting at the computer all day long, sometimes she would turn away from the computer just long enough to notice Nathan and Zoe were home.

The Internet and radio had been abuzz since early morning with breaking news about an epidemic. At the time of the breakout his daughter was at school and without delay Nathan headed there to rescue his baby Zoe, a cherubic 7 year old. When they get home Nathan founds a letter where Aubrey says that she's gone forever. Now he's on his own. He decides to go to Skeeter McGee who is Aubrey's little brother. Skeeter's a hunting enthusiast and had several pistols and hunting rifles with plenty of ammo. It would be the perfect place to hole up and wait out the end of the world.

Miranda, a third character is along with her friends and on her way to her dad's ranch, who along with his girlfriend Leah is awaiting the arrival of his two beloved daughters Miranda and Ashley. Miranda hasn't been happy with her father since her parents' divorce. She is anxious to spend the weekend with him.

In her shiny new VW Bug, Miranda is not alone but accompanied by her boyfriend Bryce, her sister Ashley and Ashley's boyfriend Cooper. Along the way they met an ex-soldier named Joey. They also ran into Nathan and Zoe.

This is where the story takes a different turn as the group of people with different priorities has to get to know each other, learn to trust each other, and work together for the safety of those left. They all try help each other in different ways. Their common goal now is to the reach Red Hill ranch. There is a lot of intensity around them. It won't be easy to make it to their final destination, Red Hill.



Description one of the characters

Though I felt for all three of the narrators In Red Hill, Scarlet stood out the most to me. I found her both a very strong and soft woman at the same time. This character is well thought. I like a type of characters who develops through the story. In Scarlet we can see all sides of her temper that shows her personality.

From the very beginning of the book what we learn about Scarlet is that she was in an unhappy marriage for years. But she left her husband and raised her two daughters by herself. She was a hard worker and got on well with the all stuff at work. Sometimes Scarlet cleaned the Red Hill ranch for a doctor she worked with. It was a quiet place a long way from a town. She took her daughters, Jenna and Halle, and they spent holidays there cleaning the house and having a good time.

Scarlet loved her children and was very considerate towards them. Though it was not easy to cope with them, she couldn't imagine a day without their happy faces.

When, at hospital, she knew the world came crashing down around her, she had to stay safe in order to get to her girls who were picked up by their father after school.

She is a very strong female character that never gives up or lets the hopelessness that comes with the end of the world to fill her heart. Even when she can't find her daughters, she continuous to have faith that she will see them again. She never loses sight of her goal to reunite with them.

During the all story you're wondering whether she can truly find happiness in this new world if she can't have what she truly wants. I may not have agreed with all the decisions she made, but her passion for her children was unquestionable. Her deep love for her daughters was obvious and her dilemma was heart-breaking. Scarlet's strength and will to survive run deep. She takes charge and it doesn't feel like she has to rely on anyone else trying to find a way to survive and get in contact with their loved ones after the world has gone mad. She is such a tough person to me, who is willing to stop at nothing. I think her despair and unfailing love for her children appealed me far more than anyone else in the story.

Comment on a passage

Just as Nathan finished his sentence, a bright light outshone the sun, and then a mushroom cloud formed, climbing miles into the sky. Every one of us stared in disbelief. I remembered seeing mushroom clouds on television, but in person . . . it didn't seem real.

“What is that?” Halle asked, finally breaking the silence.

“Is that a nuclear bomb?” Ashley said, her tone signaling her impending panic.

“'Bout how far away are we from Wichita? In miles.” Skeeter asked.

Nathan shrugged. “Right at seventy, I bet.”

“We should get inside. I don't know what kind of bomb that is, but . . .”

“Oh my God,” I said, seeing a wave of dust rising above the horizon. It was heading our way. “Go, Jenna! Go!”

Nathan and I helped the girls climb down the ladder, and I climbed down a few rungs, jumping the rest of the way when I saw the cloud was coming up fast. “Get inside!” I screamed. I closed the door and ran to get towels to stuff under it. Ashley and Skeeter were pulling up the blankets we used to cover the windows at night, and Nathan was shoving towels under the back door.

We stood in the living room, panting and staring at each other. I shook my head at Nathan, at a loss for what else to do. A roar welled up outside. Jenna, Halle, and Elleny ran to me, and I hugged them all, watching Nathan do the same with Zoe.

I chose this passage because this moment was the tensest one in the whole book and evoked lots of feelings in me. After a chain of events that showed a calm life of the characters, it affected me even stronger. I knew that this story might not end happily but I didn't expect that it would be so tragically. So I was reading line by line thinking what they could do to stay alive.

It happened when those left who survived at the chaos finally settled down at the Red Hill and got used to their new life. Everything seemed to be alright that day. But suddenly several planes passed over the ranch. Then there was a blast not so far from a town they lived in and a mushroom cloud appeared.

My heart was pumping when I read these words. I couldn't believe that all their struggles to survive and find their beloved ones were unavailing and they would die when they just started to live a normal life. It made me angry and I thought why author didn't even give them a chance. For example they could find a plane and escape from the mushroom cloud to another side of the country or go to bomb shelter which they occasionally found. Having read one more page, I found out that the bomb was nonradioactive and the fallout was just debris from the initial blast. So they didn't have to worry. To my surprise they didn't die and moreover there were several pages left in the book.

I liked the idea that both the characters and the reader are unaware what's going to happen next up to the last moment. It makes you participate in all that the characters are coming through. After this passage I found reading even more pleasant. I was happy that this story ended like this. I think it needed a happy ending.

The red hill ranch

The Red Hill ranch was located on a hill in the countryside and around it was nothing but farm and ranch land for miles. Beyond that was only one small town. Among all that mass chaos it was the only safe place to hide from the monsters multiplying by the minute.

It was Dr. Hayes' ranch who was Miranda and Ashley's father. He always had some rest there with Leah, his girlfriend, after weeks of hard work at the hospital. He was a crack shot, and Miranda's boyfriend, Bryce, had been hunting with him enough over the years that he was getting pretty good, too. Miranda used to tease her dad so many times about his ridiculous collections of firearms and ammunition. No one needed this many. But because of her dad's silly obsession, they would have weapons, the kitchen cabinets and pantry would be well stocked. They also would have well water and Butch, her dad's bull. He didn't like anyone in the yard, not even Miranda and Ashley who sometimes came to their father at weekends.

At the time walking deads reached The Red Hill ranch, there was doctor and Leah at the house. They didn't know anything about what was going on in the streets and were waiting for the children to come.

First the Red Hill ranch reached Scarlet. Scarlet failed to find her children at her husband's place and in several places they might be and she hoped they were at the Red Hill but they weren't. When she came in, there were muddy footprints in front of the door that led into the basement. They were Leah's. Dr. Hayes had come to the basement to get a gun for protection, but Leah had caught and attacked him. She must have turned quick and he was running from her. He knew he was infected, so after shooting her, he'd killed himself. It made sense. Scarlet

The doctor's ranch was the perfect place to survive the end of the world. It was well stocked with food and weapons so no one needed to worry. But Scarlet felt alone and it wasn't surviving unless her girls were there with her. So she constantly watched the road, sometimes looking so hard she could almost see them. Walking deads passed the ranch sometimes, across the neighboring field but without any event. Everyday Scarlet tried to keep busy with getting the house cleaned and ready for the girls' arrival.

Several days later came Miranda, Ashley with their boyfriends, Nathan with his little Zoe and Joey who they picked up. Despite each of them had to face the grief and come through the losses, they found a new family in each other.

The Red Hill was a place where a group of survivors found their home and where their new lives started.

Comparative table

Miranda	Ashley
she takes after her father: round face, dull brown eyes and auburn hair always made Miranda jealous of Ashley's natural beauty	she takes after her mother: tall, thin and delicate; has long, wavy, dirty blond hair
younger than Ashley	older than Miranda
she is like her father: strong-willed, resolute	she is like her mother: delicate, sensible, vulnerable
keeps her emotions under control	susceptible to stress
easily faces difficulties and fights them	every obstacle is a tragedy to her, every struggle is a death sentence.
all-sufficient, self-dependent	constantly needs someone around to help her make a decision
Miranda and Bryce have a kind of mature relationship: it was a friendship first; they treated their relationship like a duty; she felt he was more her family than her parents	Ashley and Cooper have mostly romantic relationship
Dad said Miranda was the strongest one. After divorce she had to keep living her life but Ashley's emotional meltdowns was on her shoulders now.	After divorce Ashley became a different person: wounded, overly emotional and cynical. Ashley wasn't the giggly, carefree girl Miranda grew up with.

Comment on a review

“I am obsessed with all things zombies, so when Red Hill was released by one of my favorite authors I had to read it. Sadly, this one fell short.

It has all the makings of a great story but is lacking in some areas. I felt that there were way too many point of views for this to be written in 1st person narrative. I had to stop multiple times to go back to check who's part I was reading. All of the characters felt the same to me, they were lacking that depth that I needed to really pull me into the story.

About 75% I was beginning to question where the story was going and how anything was ever going to get resolved. And eventually I began to dislike one of the main characters so much that I was hoping a Ted would take her out.

I wanted to love this book, but sometimes you don't always get what you want in the zombie apocalypse.”

To start with, I don't like all these horror kinds of things and zombie apocalypse is totally out of my comfort zone and to say honestly, I was more than surprised that Jamie McGuire would choose to write a thriller about zombies after several stories of romantic genre.

As far as Jamie McGuire's books became my favorite, Red Hill was in my Must Read list. When I've read some of the Red Hill reviews, zombie stories fans weren't very excited about this book that was a good sign for me so I thought that it might be my book.

I've picked out this review because I feel different about all points it gives us. I don't agree that reading this story from three points of view can draw you away from plotline or confuse somehow. On the contrary this was particularly effective in seeing how everything came together and realizing that all characters weren't that far away from each other. From the very beginning you start to learn about three different families, their lives and difficulties they face at the time of epidemic outbreak. To me, it's a perfect way to show the event of such a scale at once in all places. It also helps to get acquainted with each of the character's personalities closer. Saying that all characters seemed the same means that you weren't imbued with them and didn't understand the situation they all were in. I think the only thing they've got in common is that every character in this book is unhappy with some aspect of their life. It becomes clear from their backgrounds. At least the story makes you either love or hate the characters and that's because they are all have got strong personalities. It was interesting to watch how an action of one person can affect the future of another. The use of different POVs to tell the story really worked for me.

I liked the feeling that it could happen today or tomorrow, right in our real life, particularly with this kind of infection spreading so quickly and taking thousands people's lives away. All events from this book played out like a movie in my head and it was so realistic that it kept me on the edge of my chair. There were heart-breaking moments of loss. There was continuous action and suspense throughout most of the novel. I think it's got everything you could ask for in a book, adventure, romance, suspense and it's so much more than just a book about zombies.

inherite унаследовать, перенять

coddle неженка, изнеженный человек; баловень

susceptible восприимчивый, впечатлительный, поддающийся

ulnerable ранимый

auburn золотисто-каштановый

resolute непоколебимый, решительный

parking lot автостоянка

claw царапать, скрести; хватать, рвать

crumple up комкать, мять; падать духом

launch into энергично браться (за что-л.), бросаться, пускаться

moist сырой; влажный

intermittent скачкообразный, прерывистый

paint drip подтёки краски

ambling лёгкая танцующая походка

scrunch хрустеть; scrunch up морщить (нос); щурить (глаза); сутулить (спину)

bleat жаловаться, ныть, скулить

chime колокольный звон, звон курантов

ding назойливо или настойчиво повторять

immaculate безукоризненно чистый, опрятный

strand прядь; молекулярная цепочка

stringy волокнистый; свисающий прядями

tangle запутывать, усложнять

overdue опаздывающий; просроченный

seizure захват, взятие силой

cuddle крепкие объятия

penetrate through / into проникать внутрь; разглядеть; penetrate with пронизывать

siding наружная обшивка; запасный, подъездной путь; ветка

tatter клочья, лохмотья

dread бояться, трепетать от страха

residual anger остаток злобы

charred обуглившийся

carve up разделять, делить

loom очертания (неясные или преувеличенные)

devoid лишённый, не имеющий (чего-л.); свободный (от чего-л.)

attach to присоединяться; прикреплять

dawn рассвет, утренняя заря

inexplicable необъяснимый; неизъяснимый, непонятный, непостижимый

nudge слегка подталкивать локтем

shed проливать, лить (слёзы, кровь); излучать (свет, тепло и т. п.)

perimeter периметр

shovel копать, рыть

speckle запятнанный

rifle винтовка, нарезное оружие

tighter натяжное приспособление

bulge выдаваться, выпячиваться, оттопыриваться

swirl водоворот; воронка, кружение; завиток, локон

soiled грязный, запачканный

adjacent расположенный рядом, смежный, соседний (с кем-л./чем-л.)

chunky коренастый

remnant оставшиеся в живых, выжившие

tussle борьба; драка

prop up подпирать, поддерживать

agonize переживать, страдать, испытывать боль (душевную и физическую)

drag тянуть, тащить, волочить

shudder вздрагивать, содрогаться; бросать в дрожь

incessant беспрестанный, непрекращающийся, непрерывный

scolding нагоняй, выговор

soothing успокоительный; успокаивающий

nuzzle водить носом; прижаться; прикорнуть, приютиться

approach приближение; наступление

screech скрипеть, визжать, скрежетать

hatch люк; затвор

nonperishable стойкий, непортящийся

cram давка; толпа

reverend священник

fidget беспокойство, волнение, тревога; нетерпение

doorjamb дверной косяк

blast взрыв; учащённое дыхание

conceal скрывать; умалчивать; маскировать

humiliation унижение

fragile хрупкий, слабый

well лестничный пролёт

engulf поглощать, заглатывать; засасывать

quiver дрожание; дрожь, трепет

median срединная артерия; занимающий срединное положение

erupt извергать; прорываться, вырываться

stab вонзаться, ранить; вспышка, внезапный прилив (чувства)

frequently часто

squeal вопль, пронзительный крик; скрежет, скрип, вой

ammo боеприпасы

bristle отросшая борода, щетина

mallet деревянный молоток; кулак

siphon off переливать через сифон, откачивать

convertible трансформируемый, превращаемый; изменяемый

scold бранить, ругать

smirk произносить что-л. с притворной или глупой улыбкой

creek приток; речушка; ручей

stake столб, кол; стойка

taut напряжённый, взвинченный, натянутый; в хорошем состоянии; исправный

pace поступь, походка, шаг

peek быстрый взгляд, взгляд украдкой

flinch вздрагивать (от боли, испуга); передёрнуться (от отвращения)

bounce прыжок; отскок

devastation опустошение; разорение

buffer дурачок, глупый парень

crease up мять, сминать

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