Torn by Jacqueline Druga

Snakes, giant roaches, giant ant piles so large a child could fall in and never recovered, rabid dogs, the black plague plus new viruses, planes falling from the sky, giant sunspots blasting the surface of the earth and a new ice age encroach upon the homo sapiens of the earth. That's the end of my review--enough said!

Perhaps there's a story, roaming around within all these catastrophes, though sadly the telling of this extensive adventure leaves an impressionable abyss of deficiencies. First the myth of the reversal of the poles, causing extreme harm to our ecosystem equals the myth of humans using a limited ten percent of our brains. Yes, there is a reversal of the poles towards the times of extreme millennia, though the damage will be minimum. This isn't the first time speculation of extreme devastation will occur, nor will it be the last, though if there was a remote possibility of this occurrence, Druga has covered all her bases.

Ellen Bret (Bret's character is a cheap knock off of Ellen) and Dare Dare are hardly likable as the leading love interests. Were there components of evident and legitimate feelings emanating from the characters? Me thinks not! Though each character speaks massive amounts of words, sentences and paragraphs-- an ample blank emits from their personalities.

Though her Beginning series can become rather tiresome, I love all of Druga's books. She has a way of showing the best of humanity through the most trying times. The people in this story are smart and witty, but not the compassionate beings they should be. When Darius and Bret are jumping off the plane (with parachutes) and he tells the flight attendant (who will momentarily die due to the plane crashing) a witty quip showing her near demise--I felt disgust for his lack of empathy.

The very ending, which occurs 1500 years into the future was quite funny. An artifact they believe was the ancient people's bible turned out to be The Stand by Stephen King. Through the humor presents the fact that bits and pieces of society from ancient times don't always tell the full story.
Plus there is a sadness that all the work completed to protect the future of humanity is lost, and no one will ever know the sadness and sacrifice the people in the book suffered through, it's all but a puff of smoke in the past.