Pod -- Stephen Wallenfels

On the first day, for most people, the world ended.

Spinning black spheres descended from space, and anyone outside of a building -- jogging, delivering newspapers, driving to work -- was beamed out of existence. At least, that's what it looked like to the witnesses, those who happened to be peeking out of their windows at the time.

But then, the spheres just hovered there. Zapping people who ventured -- or were forced -- outside, but other than that, doing nothing. Waiting, maybe? No one knows.

So, imagine. You wake up one morning, and you have to survive, indefinitely, without leaving your house. Or your apartment building. Or the hotel you're staying in. Or the parking garage you happened to be in. How would you long would you last? Physically? Mentally?

POD tells that story from the perspective of 12-year-old Megs, trapped alone in a Los Angeles parking garage, and 16-year-old Josh, stuck in his Washington state home with his father. They both have to deal with rapidly diminishing stores of food and water, but while Josh has to figure out how to handle the increasingly annoying -- and then strange -- behavior of his father, Megs has to avoid a sociopathic security guard and -- hopefully -- find her mother.

It's a suspenseful, claustrophobic read. Even though Megs spends a lot of the first half of the book hiding, her segments feel especially action-packed -- because while Josh is stuck on the inside, witnessing the horrors that are occurring to other residents of his neighborhood, Megs is desperately trying to A) stay hidden from the aforementioned guard while B) not starving. The details about waste management (bathroom issues) will appeal to those who always wonder about that sort of thing during zombie apocalypse movies or War of the Worlds. The security guard is a bit Over-The-Top Super Bad Guy, but it's easily imaginable that some people would get power-mad in a situation like that, or use it as a pass to act on aggression that had previously been held in check by the expectations of society.

Some readers will be frustrated by the lack of answers. (I admit it, I was.) But, the lack of answers was within keeping with the storyline -- the characters wouldn't have had any way of answering any of the reader's questions. So, in that way, the author stayed true to the reality of the story, and I can't fault him for that, even though it was frustrating. And, hey -- there's certainly room for a sequel, and I'll be the first to read it.

Recommended for fans of the Pfeffer series, definitely.

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Book source: Review copy from the publisher.