Thomas & Mercer, January 19, 2016.
Three Stars
Clare always had an unsettled relationship with her
family, and she moved far away from them as soon as she was able to. When her
parents are killed suddenly, she is forced to return home to Clarkeston, Maine
and become guardian to her mentally ill brother Wes. Upon her return, something
seems off in the sleepy little town. When she goes to pick up Wes at the psych
ward, it is overflowing with patients and everyone is filled with unexplained violent
emotions.
Before she has a chance to plan her parents’ funeral,
the residents of Clarkeston start to go crazy. A contagious mutation, nicknamed
“Gaspereau” after the lab where it was discovered, is on the loose. Spreading
through cold-like symptoms, Gaspereau causes people to display symptoms of
schizophrenia – the illness that Wes happens to be afflicted with. While the
infection is not fatal on its own, it causes hallucinations, paranoia, and
violent behaviour, leading to many fatalities – and it is spreading rapidly. In
fact, Clare’s parents were likely two of Gaspereau’s first victims, as they
were randomly attacked by a man with whom they attended church for many years.
Clare feels unequipped to deal with her brother’s
symptoms, not to mention an entire town exhibiting schizophrenic-like behaviour
– but before she can leave town, Clarkeston is quarantined. An unknown
government agency uses the lockdown to capture Wes, as they believe he could be
part of the cure for madness. Clare manages to help him make a daring escape
from the hospital, but then the two are on a run for their lives. As Wes’
guardian, Clare must decide whether she is able – or indeed if she has a moral
obligation – to sacrifice her brother in order to save millions of other
people.
A Cure for
Madness makes reference to other apocalyptic
literature, including The Passage, Fahrenheit 451 and The Walking Dead. Usually, when the end of the world strikes in a
novel, it happens outside the literary canon of other such novels – in this
case, Clare’s awareness of this literature acts as foreshadowing and increases
her fear level. The disease itself is believable, and the author’s explanations
of the science behind it are short and sweet – just enough information to make
it seem plausible, without getting bogged down in details.
Some of the timing of events was too convenient, as
things didn’t seem to happen organically – many scenes were written only to
justify the next situation, and it doesn’t flow naturally. It was also
extremely coincidental that Clare’s best friend is a TSA agent and her newly
reunited ex-boyfriend is a doctor on the front lines of the outbreak – so
between the two of them, Clare has all the access she needs to information
about Gaspereau and about the agency that is hunting her brother Wes. I also
found that some of Clare’s backstory was unnecessarily manipulative, and it
didn’t really add to the plot.
The ending was rushed, and I wished for more
character development – this could have either been a longer novel, or it could
have been followed with a sequel. Regardless, I couldn’t help but be swept away
in the adventures of Clare and Wes, and it was definitely a fun read. The
ending was easy to guess, but it was still a great ride getting there. Most of all,
Clare realized that nobody’s perfect, and she learned to be a hero in her own
way, without submitting to any of the romantic tropes that would usually define
the female hero in an apocalyptic novel. A fun, surface-level summer read that
still makes you think.
I received this novel from Thomas & Mercer and
NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
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