
Z for Zachariah
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Narrated by:
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Christina Moore
About this listen
Something terrible has finally happened. A nuclear holocaust has destroyed civilization. For one whole year, 16-year-old Ann Burden has lived alone on her family’s farm, somehow sheltered from the radiation in the valley. As she hears the final radio station going off the air, she believes she is the only person left alive. But when Ann sees smoke from a faraway campfire, she knows there is at least one other survivor. Soon an incredible figure wearing a green suit and carrying an oxygen tank appears on the road. With the intruder in her valley, she makes a chilling discovery: There are worse things than being alone.
Newbery Award-winning author Robert C. O’Brien won an Edgar Award for this suspense-filled science fiction tale of a young woman determined to survive on her own terms. Narrator Christina Moore places you on the scene with Ann in a strange world with an unknown future.
©1974 Sally Conly (P)1999 Recorded Books, LLCIt seems remarkably problematic for a book people read in school 😵
Ann Burden is fifteen and the sole survivor of global nuclear war.
She lives with her dog, Faro, in a remote valley and, despite her desperate circumstances, is resourceful, calm and determined.
She plants crops, drives the tractor, ploughs the fields, tends the animals and fully accepts that she is the caretaker of the only untainted land left in the world and that she will live and die alone.
But one day, a man in a radiation suit turns up. Ann hides at first, wanting to know more about him before revealing herself.
But when he washes in the river and contracts radiation poisoning she makes the choice to care for him.
What follows is a complex exploration of power and gender. What does it mean to be a young woman in a world with only one man?
John Loomis, as the man in the suit is revealed to be, is a scientist, older than Ann and with a capacity for intimidation and subterfuge.
Once recovered from sickness, he starts to give orders, has all sorts of plans to “improve” the farm and is critical of how Ann has been managing up to now.
He suggests they “start a colony” together and becomes increasingly controlling as each day passes.
Eventually, he attempts to rape her.
Ann elbows him in the throat and flees.
Eventually, Anne offers a compromise to share the valley.
Loomis suggests she should act “more like an adult and less like a school girl”, implying she should submit to sleeping with him and stop being ridiculous.
He steals the keys to the tractor, withholds supplies and finally shoots her, forcing her to run for her life.
I was disturbed and outraged by Ann’s story. I was desperate for her to defeat Loomis.
This was her land and she was there first and what right did he have to come along and take over?
How dare he threaten to take charge of her body!
By the end of the book, Ann has made impossibly difficult decisions, shown courage and integrity, overpowered her aggressor and survived.
The ending is full of hope as she walks into a potentially new world with her independence intact.
Harrowing yet enchanting.
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Back to my secondary school days of reading this. Still a favourite!
Blast from the past!
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it has such a dark side that for the majority is left to the reader to conjure.
Highly recommended and I would recommend you listen with your kids if you can tear them away from technology and video games for a few hours.
fantastic
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A story of its time
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Heart felt story
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Female protagonist
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School Days
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Gripping story, excellent narration
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Great tale
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The narrator was wonderful, the story well told and despite my knowing the twists and turns, I was engaged throughout.
I will not say much about the story - I don’t want to give anything away to anyone finding this novel for the first time, but just to say you will be thinking of this story for a long time afterwards.
Excellent
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