Audible Original Fiction by H.J. Nelson
Three years ago a terrible plague wiped out almost everyone on earth, starting with all the females. There are some surviving men, almost all under thirty, many of whom are banding together in clans for survival.
But for some unknown reason, there is one young woman still alive, hence the title. Ara has been living in the forest with her father, avoiding all the groups of men, because of course they are dangerous to her. Until she is left alone and gets captured....
The story started out really good and I liked the characters a lot at first. As it went on, however, things got more and more implausible. Maybe because this book is aimed at the YA market, particularly at young women, it shied away from realistically portraying how very dark a future that this scenario would make.
This author would have us believe that these scarred men --who had seen the collapse of civilization and endured the death of almost everyone they had loved-- would greet the discovery of a surviving woman with awe and hope, and treat Ara kindly and respectfully. I highly doubt this.
Plus Ara herself was a difficult character; she vacillated between tough-girl and damsel-in-distress with dizzying rapidity, and she just kept making poor decisions that managed to get other people --but never herself!-- killed.
I'm giving this a thumbs-up for generally holding my attention, but when I got to the end I was ready to be done with these unrealistic characters. Then I realized that the author was setting up for a sequel! No thanks...
