Ashes by Ilsa J Bick 465 pages 9781606841754

Starting the year off with yet another dystopian young adult novel. Alex has set off on her own into a big park in Michigan to make some major life decisions. She phones her Aunt Hannah to tell her that she is going to stop taking additional medical treatment to treat the" monster inside her brain" (cancer?). Her parents are dead (she is carrying their ashes) and she is feeling that the end is near. Her solitude is interrupted by a grandfather, his annoying granddaughter and their dog.Ellie is a hand full. She breaks Hannah's french press coffee maker, is disrespectful and downright rude. She clearly has issues because her mother had abandoned her and her father recently died in Iraq. Her grandfather hoped that adopting an injured dog from her father's unit might help her. Alex can see that a new doggie is not going to solve Ellie's problems. Then the event happens. A shrill noise that causes birds to fall from the skies, deer to leap off a cliff and kills the grandfather changes the situation. It also fries ipods, phones, battery powered watches and pacemakers. On the good side, Alex has recovered her lost sense of smell. In fact this sense is now super powerful. This helps when she can sniff out the zombies that seem to spring out of nowhere. It seems like certain ages of people have died from "the event", many, but not all teens have "changed". Alex reluctantly takes Ellie under her wing with the hope of finding help at the nearest ranger station. On the way she meets Tom - former soldier, with a lot of skills, but a lot of questions beneath the surface.  Like many books in this genre, this has action, brisk pacing and a disquieting end. Could be a sequel is in the works. Not a bad book to read on a wintry day.