Abomination (The Pathfinders, #1) by Jane Dougherty

Abomination (The Pathfinders, #1) Reviews

• 
  Dannii Elle

  I received this in exchange for an honest review from NetGalley. Thank you to the author, Jane Dougherty, and the publisher, Finch Books, for this opportunity.
  
  I saw the words 'wormhole' and 'post-Abomination world' in the synopsis and knew I had to read this book! The plot follows teenage sweethearts, Carla and Tully, who experience the literal end of the world. The pair are expecting nothing other than an average day in their Paris high-school but events quickly and inexplicably accumulate until hail the size of houses is raining down on them, dormant volcanoes are erupting, convulsions are rattling the earth, and all other manner of hell suddenly implode into their world. Whilst trying to flee to somewhere safe, they inadvertently discover a wormhole through time and get sucked five years into the future. The world they know has gone and in its place is an icy wasteland, where only the scavengers and the warriors can survive.
  
  This felt almost like a futuristic
  Lord of the Flies, which isn't my favourite classic text to start with. But my real problem with this dwelt with the lack of basis for the story. Within the first few pages the Earth we know was obliterated, and the duo this focuses on were dragged into the future. I didn't have time to formulate an understanding about who, what, and why and, without that, I found I couldn't care much about the events that followed.
  
  Of the two protagonists, I found I only remotely liked Carla. Her sense of propriety for the females she meet in the future and the actions she took to defend them and herself makes her charming and engaging. I like a strong woman in my fiction!
  
  Tully, however, was an absolute ass. From the moment the reader is introduced to him, I felt I wasn't going to be able to gather any sort of affinity for him. His forced wit seemed.. well, forced. It just appeared unbelievable to me that anybody would attempt humour during such a dire time and how he could not see that his forced blase would do nothing to cheer up his girlfriend when her entire family had possibly been killed! His attitude was as aggravating to the reader as it was to Carla.
  
  If possible, he went even further down in my estimations when he entered the future world and somehow became some sort of warrior, performing feats never before accomplished. This emerging aggression also heightened the other unlikable aspects of his character and he transformed into the villain of the story, for a time. But all of this happened so fast that I still couldn't really get a feel for who was supposed to be, in relation to the narrative.
  
  Characters aside, the emergence of the hybrid animal races also felt unrealistic and I struggled to see what their presence brought to the story, apart from making the reader feel uncomfortable. Even if they were aggressive, animal abuse is one of my triggers in literature and really struggle to read anything featuring it. I think I knew from that point that this wasn't going to be the book for me.
  
  I think I may have continued reading this with such an intense dislike that I couldn't see past my initial opinions. It may have got better, and the idea behind the plot as well as the conception of it was actually rather good, if a little rushed at the beginning. However, for me, certain aspects of this sadly didn't allow me to formulate any positive opinions.
• 
  Jane

  Hello, this is Jane Dougherty, the author, speaking. Ignore the five stars, if you like, I had to rate the book in order to tell you about it, and I wasn’t going to rate it one star, was I? What I feel I ought to point out is that Abomination is a YA novel. That means young adult. It’s not a kids’ story. There are no sparkly unicorns and spotty adolescents with superpowers. It’s nasty. Ugly sometimes. And if you are the kind of person who even uses the expression ‘f bomb’ then you should avert your gaze and pass on the other side of the street. Abomination is fast, funny (sometimes), violent, and exciting. If you think you could cope with Lord of the Flies with a cast of big, brutish, gangsta boys rather than small, rather well brought up, school boys, you might like this. Just don’t say you weren’t told.
• 
  Veronica

  High school sweethearts Carla and Tully are having a picnic in Paris when the end of the world begins until they are pulled into a wormhole and deposited 5 years in the future where they find that survival is still a struggle in this new apocalyptic world. The new world reminded me a bit of "Lord of the Flies" and the writing seemed a bit choppy at times. Otherwise, the book was interesting enough for me to finish and put the next book in the series on my TBR list.
• 
  Danielle

  (I received an ARC of this book on NetGalley from the publisher in exchange for a fair and honest review.)
  
  I had high hopes for Abomination since I generally like apocalyptic and dystopian stories, but I was disappointed in this book. Although the premise is interesting (Carla and Tully fall through a wormhole mid-apocalypse and discover the post-apocalyptic future, etc. etc.), it was hard to buy into the novel.
  
  First of all, the thing that I struggled with most in this novel is that the author does a lot of *telling*, as opposed to showing us character and plot development. We are constantly told that the women are so subjugated, but it’s difficult to accept this as we are also told that the ruling tribesmen are a bunch of adolescent boys. The author uses flashbacks, but even then this subjugation lacks believability and subtlety – there were a bunch of earthquakes, and then all of a sudden the women were afraid and meek. Here’s a very typical “telling” sentence:
  
  “He was a slave to the predictions of the half-wit he called a Holy Man, and Flo despised him for it.”
  
  I liked some of the world-building, but in general, the novel was awkwardly written and had too many ideas (the race of mutant dogs, the Rat Men, the sheer number of tribes, the Burnt Man) and was setting up for the series from page one.
  
  Lastly, I will say that the author’s review on her own novel on Goodreads in order to tell us something (as opposed to using her blog) was a big deterrent for me.
• 
  M.J. Mallon

  Abomination is the first book in the Pathfinders series. The two main characters teenagers Carla and Tully, are trying to cope with the challenges and uncertainties of a shocking post-apocalyptic world in which only the strongest and fittest will survive.  Abomination demonstrates Jane Dougherty's talent for writing powerful descriptive passages combined with   believable dialogue.  There are  a whole bunch of characters to keep the reader entertained. But be prepared for some hard hitting scenes as this YA novel packs some less than tender punches. The novel draws to a gripping close and revelation.  In truth, I am a bit of a novice in terms of post-apocalyptic novels so it was interesting to challenge myself to try something new. Abomination will appeal to both male and female YA readers who enjoy post-apocalyptic narratives, and to readers like myself who sometimes like to step out of their usual genre comfort zone  to broaden their reading experience. 
  It is perhaps more suitable for the upper age limit of the YA market rather than the lower end due to some upsetting scenes.
• 
  Diana Petrova

  To start off, this book was sent to me by the publisher on NetGalley, in exchange for my honest review. So thank you to both Jane Dougherty and her publisher for the opportunity to read this!
  
  Abomination is the first book in the Pathfinder series. Our main protagonists are Carla and Tully. They are teenagers who are having lunch in the quad of their high school in Paris when all of a sudden all hell breaks loose and the Apocalypse starts. While they are trying to find their way to (relative) safety, they manage to fall through time by being sucked into a wormhole. They end up five years in the future where they find out that the world is destroyed. There they both fall in the hands of the Burnt Man and his horseman. Tully ends up being taken prisoner and having to become a warrior, and Carla is forced to be a slave in the kitchens (and not only in the kitchens). That's all you're gonna get for a synopsis. If you want to find out what happens with these two, you should go and get the book.
  
  So what did I think about this book...? Honestly, I liked it. It was an entertaining and quick read, and I enjoyed myself for the most part. There were some things that had me a bit confused or annoyed me a bit, but that's with most books. My biggest irritant was the pace of the story, especially in the beginning. In the span of 5 pages, we have a complete U-turn. We have the main protagonists sitting in the quad, enjoying the sun and all of a sudden the world is in shambles. While I do understand that this is done on purpose by the author, it had me a bit confused as everything was moving so fast. Those pages reminded me of the movie The Day After Tomorrow. It was a very cinematic experience when we read about the nuclear plants, airplanes, and earthquakes. Kinda wish we had a little more to go on in that department. It was also very confusing, not knowing what had happened in the 5 years that we had skipped. We later find out what happened through the stories of the Abomination, told to Carla by Kat.
  
  The main characters are Tully in Carla. I wasn't able to connect with Tully. I found him to be a little unapproachable, especially later on in the book. He was brutal, which I understood. He had to fight for his survival for the first time in his life. We get to witness the metamorphosis of a present-day teenager when faced with the possibility of a violent death and slavery. It was fascinating. But while Carla is mostly trying to GTFO, Tully seems to be feeding his teenage male ego with warrior wins. I think that this is when I really started being unable to understand him. But perhaps we can attribute his behaviour to his age and need for young men to prove themselves (especially in this type of a situation).
  
  What's interesting is that I actually liked Tully more than Carla in the beginning, but then there was a bit of a reversal, and I was rooting for Carla. Perhaps it was the feminist in me... Reading about her defending the other women, showed her true colors and I liked that.
  
  Then there is also Kat, who is our sole source of information on what has happened in the years that we skipped. We learn more about her than any other secondary character and naturally, her past is not a good one. It's filled with all types of abuse. We see her evolve into a much more hopeful individual when given Carla's company. Having a confidant really made a difference to her character development.
  
  The worldbuilding in Abomination is bomb. I've always had a soft spot for dystopian YA novels, and this one did not disappoint. It was not your typical YA novel, though, as there are plenty of gory scenes and ones that can make you pretty emotional. For that reason, I would not recommend this book to anyone who's not a fan of that or someone too young to understand it. But beyond that, we witness an entirely different society to our own. In some dystopian fiction, there is a different governmental and social organization, but there is always some sort of it. Here, we have gone to the past in the future, reading about complete adherence to gender roles and tribal relationships between the characters. I quite enjoyed how different that was to most books on the topic of the apocalypse. The author dwells even deeper into this uncharted territory, by creating news animal - human hybrids.
  The book also deals with series issues, such as slavery. A perspective on it, which I have personally never read before. The world is vibrant and sucks the reader in. I was always left, wanting more. I will surely read the next book as well.
  
• 
  Eric

  My Review:
  
  
  'Abomination' is the first book in 'The Pathfinders' series by Jane Dougherty. I will start off by saying that I immensely enjoyed this apocalyptic novel. It was dark, gritty, and raw and had me completely pulled into the story. 'Abomination' is a fantastic read which is very well written and the story (even though apocalyptic /post-apocalyptic has been done before), is very original and engrossing.
  
  One of the first things I noticed, was seeing parallel elements from 'Lord of the Flies' by William Golding, and I feel has elements in common with 'The Walking Dead' also. As I've mentioned above, it's simply a very dark and brutal book. I would not hesitate to recommend it to young adults, as that is that is also the intended audience. There is strong language throughout the book, so those who are very sensitive, should be forewarned.
  
  
  The story starts off quite harmlessly, but things go down the drain very quickly for Carla and Tully, as they are hurtled through a wormhole five years into the future just as the end of the world is beginning. Unfortunately, this just takes them out of the frying pan and into the fire. There they must battle against blood-thirsty youngsters, gangs, mutated animals and against other characters which I will only describe here as supernatural or demonic (i.e. the Burnt Man).
  
  It is a story of adapting oneself to a new environment and dire situations while still trying to hold onto one's values and to rise above the despondency and cut-throat ways of the gangs who have had to live through five years of hell and destruction. Just as in 'Lord of the Flies', any semblance of society has fallen apart and the youngsters are not concerned with growing food or following rules (except their own twisted law), but are only interested in fighting and with attaining/holding onto power.
  
  
  'Abomination', isn't just about the struggle of humans against nature and other humans, but is a struggle against mutated animals and supernatural forces which wish to destroy the world. These elements, due to spoilers, will not be talked about in this review, but needless to say, 'Abomination' is an action-packed supernatural thriller which borders on horror.
  
  
  What makes this story believable, are the actions of the characters in the book. The characters act in a very believable and natural way, which pulls us in as the reader and makes us feel for these characters. Furthermore, the author's writing style is easy to read and her descriptions pull the reader in and fully immerse them in this experience.
  
  
  The book ends with a very good cliffhanger which just makes me want to pick up the second book, 'Devastation', in order to continue the journey with Carla and Tully.
  
  'Abomination' is an action-packed apocalyptic novel which borders on horror. Due to its original take on the end of times, and for the superb writing style of Jane Dougherty, I highly recommend this book to others who enjoy supernatural thrillers. I would absolutely love to see this book get a movie deal or even better, a Netflix series, as I believe the story would find a huge fan-base across wide audiences.
  
  
  At this point, I also wish to take the time to thank the author for having written this book and for all the hours of great entertainment it has given me. I'm sure future readers of 'Abomination' will not regret picking up this gem! Happy reading!
  
  Please visit my blog for further reviews:
  http://book-readers-anonymous.blogspo...
• 
  Jamie Cayley

  I received a copy from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. This is my first time reading and reviewing a book through their platform which is quite exciting! I would also like to thank Jane Dougherty and Finch Books for the opportunity.
  
  The book follows Carla and Tully, two high school students who go through a wormhole that takes them 5 years into the future. The world is quite different from how it was before: tribalism is back, food is scarce, the men are warriors and the women are treated as slaves. However, the specifics of what happened during the 5 years we missed aren't mentioned (other than vague references to "the Abomination") until much later in the book, which made it hard to follow the story and understand the motivation behind certain characters' actions.
  
  Out of the characters I only liked Carla and Kat, one of the women in the tribe. Soon after Carla and Tully emerge from the wormhole Carla is sent to the women's quarters. In the meantime, Tully is waiting for his initiation ceremony, where he'll have to fight some sort of human-animal hybrid. After winning the fight Tully made himself a Warlord. Carla seems focused on helping the other women and leaving to a safer place while Tully is busy being a self-obsessed asshole. This really upset Carla, understandably so, but then out of the blue she forgives him even though there wasn't a significant change in his behaviour which made me wonder what the entire purpose of that character arc was.
  
  Kat is the character through whom we learn about the Abomination and the events that lead to the current state of the world. As a result, she ends up being the only character whose background is explained in depth, which makes her a more relatable/likeable character. My main problem with the Kat storyline was that she spent years undergoing abuse, both sexual and otherwise, from the men in the tribe but having Carla around and becoming hopeful about the future seemed to magically wash the effect of that away. I think abuse and slavery are important topics to cover in young adult books but it felt like it was just a side note rather than an important issue being covered in a way that is helpful and that people who unfortunately find themselves in similar situations can relate to.
  
  Overall the book definitely had an interesting storyline and interesting character development but it felt like no one part of the plot got the coverage it deserved, which made the book not as enjoyable as I expected.
  
  
  
• 
  Jo McKenna-Aspell

  I'm not really sure what to write. I always feel guilty recommending dystopian literature to other readers: "Read this dark, disturbing book because it's great and it'll make you feel awful!"
  
  But it is a great dystopian story, like a blend of "Lord of the Flies" and something more supernatural. It took me a long time to believe the Holy Man wasn't spouting nonsense just to give himself a position of power or, at the very least, to rationalise the end-of-the-world events. In fact, I only starting believing at around the time Carla and Tully realised something sinister and odd was going on. It's quite a powerful technique to have the reader held at the same point as the characters rather than over-relying on dramatic irony. Many of the YA futuristic novels I consume give the reader too much insight and a significant portion of the tale is simply a case of waiting for the characters to catch up.
  
  I can't say I enjoyed this novel as it isn't pleasant. The themes and the ideas are grim... and we're thrust into the darkness pretty quickly. Any moments of joy are because you find yourself celebrating the violent demise of characters you dislike, which then makes you doubt your moral code, leaving a foul taste in your mouth. There isn't any hope or light... but there shouldn't be, either, as it would be out of place.
  
  No. I didn't *enjoy* the book but it was immensely satisfying and brilliantly written. I couldn't put it down as I needed to know, to see, to continue. Moreover, I have already purchased the sequels - guess I won't be doing much work this week!
  
  Now I've finished it, I need a long walk in the sunshine, a pretty cocktail and a Disney movie to cheer up my brain.
• 
  Nicole

  A rushed and disorienting beginning make for an almost incoherent start to this book, but once the characters enter the apocalyptic future, the story comes into focus. The plot is pretty good, but you need to understand this is apocalyptic, like the Bible, not just a post apocalyptic setting. I wasn't prepared for the mystical elements, so it threw me out of the story when one appeared. I was left with a lot of questions, particularly what role the main characters are really meant to play in the bigger picture. I am certain this is going to be resolved in the follow up books, but don't expect all the answers in this book. The writing is spotty. Some dialogue feels forced, and I had a hard time interpreting the relationship between the main characters. I couldn't understand how they could be so in love but not act like it almost all of the time. It was more friend vibe than romance. I also wasn't in love with the narrative style, which alternated at random times between present and past, but it was clear enough that I could follow the jump. Overall, I felt like the writing needed more polish to really make this story shine. Language and situations are most appropriate for more mature YA readers. I received an ARC from the publisher via NetGalley but this in no way impacted my review.
• 
  Kurt Springs

  This Review was First Published on Kurt's Frontier.
  
  This book was won as a giveaway on Goodreads.
  
  Synopsis:
  
  Carla and Tully were having a picnic in the quad of their international high school when the End of Days begins. In a panic, they travel through a wormhole that takes them five years into the future. The End of Days is still going on. The world is a desolate place. The sky is grey, and the land is freezing and poisonous. Humanity is now organized into tribes. Young people are formed up in gangs that fight each other and the monsters that roam the wastes. Each day is a struggle to survive.
  
  Carla and Tully are taken prisoner by the Flay tribe, who claim a ruined shopping mall as their headquarters. Tully must become a warrior. Carla is forced to join the other girls who work as kitchen slaves and comfort women. Everyone is waiting for a mythical being called the Burnt Man and his four demon riders to return. Then the Apocalypse will truly begin. Only Tully, Carla, and their new-found friends don’t plan to wait around for the end of the world proper.
  
  Review:
  
  Jane Dougherty’s Abomination is the first book in The Pathfinders series. A young couple living in Paris fall through a wormhole when the Apocalypse begins. They find themselves in a dystopian world that, while not quite post-apocalyptic, seems to be on the ropes. The backstory revolves around the Burnt Man, who seems to have initiated the end of days. In his wake, young men and women live a brutish existence that resembles William Golding’s Lord of the Flies. The protagonists, Tully and Carla, are flung into this world. They are forced to join one of the tribes. Among the Flay tribe, they find friends and begin plotting how they will escape.
  
  The book was hard to get into at first. I’m not a huge fan of dystopian fiction, and there is a lot of exposition. However, once the action starts, the story moves along. I would be interested in reading the sequel.
• 
  Kitty Muse Book Reviews

  Tully and Carla are students at an international school, with no problems in their lives other than having to take Saturday morning classes, the appearance of leek quiche for lunch, and what to do after school. It is nothing more than a small worry when the sun becomes hotter than usual, there is worldwide rioting, and Mt. Fuji seems on the verge of blowing up. Being teens, the outside world doesn’t touch them much.
  The storm changes it all in an instant. And the wormhole, although it saves their lives, changes the pair’s world completely.
  When the dust settles, they emerge from Carla’s cellar to an unrecognizable, shattered landscape, utterly devoid of life.
  Unless you count the survivors, who themselves are hardly considered “living”.
  The two are captured by one member of a number of “tribes”, who delivers them to his leader, a man-child by the name of Ace, whose tribe lives in the ruins of a shopping mall. Here, Tully and Carla learn of what has transpired in the surprisingly five years since they had disappeared into that hole…
  …and that they all await the return of The Burnt Man.
  
  I’d been waiting for Ms. Dougherty to produce another book, and she more than met my expectations. The characters in this book reminded me a lot of the boys in “Lord of the Flies”. And the mall—creepy atmosphere entirely! Because—guess what?—the kids are not alone…
  Oh—and why are they just kids of a certain age? Well, that would be telling.
  I am just in awe of the worlds Jane Dougherty can create. They are so vibrant, filled with sensory depictions so vivid the reader can be totally immersed in the tale from the first to the last page.
  This book is the first in a new series—and I am waiting, once again, for the next installment in this new world she has created for us.
  
• 
  Dylan Hearn

  I really enjoyed Jane Dougherty's Green Woman trilogy so when I found out she'd written a YA trilogy I had to find out more.
  The book follows two High School kids, Carla and Tully, as they try to escape from the catastrophe that's taken over the world only to find themselves thrown into a future of cold, hunger, violence and fear.
  You can tell the novel has been heavily influenced by the Lord of the Flies, but where Golding's book showed the slow decent into violence and tribalism, Dougherty extrapolates this out to the extreme. It is a tough read in places but all the better for it. Nobody comes out of this unscathed and part of the tension of the novel is seeing whether our protagonists become corrupted by the society from which they're trying to escape.
  There were times towards the second half of the book where I felt there were too many trips back into the past which slowed the book's pace but overall this is an excellent start to a gritty, post-apocalyptic story.
• 
  Sacha Black

  Doughty is a master weaver of apocalyptic settings. Her world is hauntingly realistic. Her story is not for the faint of heart, you can tell that Dougherty would slay any red-eyed hell demon that dared cross her path. If you love descriptively stunning books, this is for you. Her style is a rich poetic prose and yet flows with the ease of any other YA novel. Personally, I feel it's right at the upper end of Young Adult, if not New Adult with it's frequent juicy language and beautifully raw-gore descriptions. I loved it. It unsettled me and made me uncomfortable in all the right places. HIGHLY recommended.
• 
  Carol Browne

  This is intelligent and sophisticated YA fiction that adults can also enjoy. Beautifully written with heaps of tension and dramatic conflict, there is also plenty of genuine horror and a fair amount of tongue-in-cheek humour. The dialogue is natural and realistic, the atmosphere edgy and sinister, and this post-apocalyptic future is a bleak and brutal setting for the two likeable protagonists, who must use all their wits to survive. I really enjoyed this book and look forward to book two.
• 
  Trshava

  *ebook given through Netgalley which doesn't affect my opinion*
  
  I'm so happy that I found about this book,because I LOVE IT! And I'm so happy there is another book!
• 
  Mallory

  I received a free copy of this book from NetGalley in exchange for a review.
  
  This book was kinda "meh" until closer to the end I found. I enjoyed the story but I felt nothing much happened until the last couple chapters (which I really enjoyed). All in all, it's a good post-apocalyptic story and worth the read in the end. I was honestly waiting for the book to end but after the last couple chapters I was upset when it did.
  
  My biggest issue with the book? I didn't much like either of the main characters (Carla and Tully). Tully was kind of a self-centred jerk and Carla puts up with it. I mean, she gets upset but usually doesn't even show it. And don't forget, they are like boyfriend-girlfriend and in a loving, romantic relationship. You WILL forget all about this until they randomly kiss during a scene. The way they interact otherwise I would think them more good friends or family even.
  
  Despite the lacklustre romance and the slow-til-the-end story, I still recommend because it does get better and other characters that aren't Tully and Carla are enjoyable (I liked Kat and Jeff, personally). Would I read a sequel?? Yes, in a heartbeat (I mean it does leave you hanging!!).