Review+ Giveaway: Everything Under the Sun by Jessica Redmerski

Welcome to my stop on the blog tour for Everything Under the Sun! Reading the synopsis (and seeing that cover) I knew this was a story I wanted to read. But this wasn't just another read - it was an experience. Jessica Redmerski created a world that was scarily realistic - and all too believable - and took me on a journey that I won't soon forget. It's a rare book that gets 5 stars from me but this one did just that. So check out my thoughts, enter the giveaway, and use the links below to get your own copy today.

Everything Under The Sun 
Jessica Redmerski
Publication date: August 28th 2017
Genres: Adult, Dystopian, Post-Apocalyptic, Romance, Suspense

Thais Fenwick was eleven-years-old when civilization fell, devastated by a virus that killed off the majority of the world’s population. For seven years, Thais and her family lived in a community of survivors deep in the heart of the Appalachian Mountains. But when her town is attacked by raiders, she and her blind sister are taken away to the East-Central Territory where she is destined to live the cruel and unjust kind of life her late mother warned her about.
Atticus Hunt is a troubled soldier in Lexington City who has spent the past seven years trying to conform to the vicious nature of men in a post-apocalyptic society. He knows that in order to survive, he must abandon his morals and his conscience and become like those he is surrounded by. But when he meets Thais, morals and conscience win out over conformity, and he risks his rank and his life to help her. They escape the city and set out together on a long and perilous journey to find safety in Shreveport, Louisiana.
Struggling to survive in a world without electricity, food, shelter, and clean water, Atticus and Thais shed their fear of growing too close, and they fall hopelessly in love. But can love survive in such dark times, or is it fated to die with them?

Goodreads / Amazon / Barnes & Noble 

 This book…

Oh my goodness, this book!

I would say I’ve been left speechless but that’s not really true. It’s more like I have So Many Feelings that I just don’t know where to start. It’s been a long time since I’ve read anything so completely engrossing, so heart wrenching, so dark and yet so hopeful. Everything Under the Sun is a post-apocalyptic dystopian tale but it’s also so much more. It’s an epic story of good vs evil. It’s a story of survival. It’s an action-adventure. And it’s a love story. It’s all that and more.

When you die, you won’t need the soil to hold you, Thais, because I’ll be right there next to you holding you myself.

Everything Under the Sun starts off with a bang. Redmerski throws us into a world of utter lawlessness, filled with violence and danger. Years after the world’s population has been devastated by a virus, society is stripped not only of life’s luxuries but of basic human needs like food, shelter and clean water. Living quietly and remotely with her father and sister, Thais’s circumstances change in an instant and so begins a journey that will see her through enormous loss, terrifying challenges, and seemingly insurmountable odds as she struggles to find safety and freedom. Her meeting with Atticus is under the direst of circumstances and is the catalyst that changes the course of her life yet again.

Everything under the sun… it’s all going to be yours someday. It will, Thais, because you’re so good and pure. And you can change the world.

I adored these characters. Thais was kind and sweet and vulnerable but also strong and fierce as hell. She rose to challenges instead of being defeated by them and she clung to her belief in the goodness of people and her hope for a better future. And then there was Atticus. Carrying a mantle of self-recrimination and guilt, Atticus was a like an onion whose layers were peeled back one at a time. I appreciated the complexities of his character and the changes in him over the course of the story were subtle yet powerful.

I knew I could never leave her here, or anywhere, without me. She was my charge. She was my last chance at redemption.

Told in dual POV’s (sometimes within the same chapter which took some getting used but I ended up loving it), Everything Under the Sun is filled with ups and downs that made it almost uputdownable from start to finish. Redmerski deftly added a subtle undercurrent of faith and belief in something greater than what can be seen. I usually find elements of religion or spirituality in novels to be heavy-handed (and, frankly, a turn-off), but it is so seamlessly woven into the story that it feels like a natural balance to the themes of good vs evil and lightness overcoming the dark.

I want to teach people not to be afraid. I want them to understand that the world needs goodness now more than ever. That's all I want: for people to understand, and not be afraid of doing what is right.

With main characters that captured my heart, a cast of secondary characters that I rooted for and railed against, world building that was so immersive I could practically smell the fires burning and hear the chants and jeers of the crowds, Everything Under the Sun was everything I wanted and didn’t even know it. The ending was equal parts heartbreaking and hopeful and has me desperate for the continuation of this incredible story. Yes, I may have had a few quibbles with the pacing of the plot and the pacing of Atticus and Thais’s relationship, but those issues are so minor compared to my love for the overall story. Redmerski has created a beautiful love story set in a brutal world – a story that warmed my heart, hurt my heart, made me cringe, and made me think. This is one that will stay with me for a very long time.

5/5 STARS

Note: Everything Under the Sun contains scenes that are sensitive in nature and may be troubling to some readers: violence, allusion to rape/sexual assault (off the page), and suicide.

*I received a complimentary copy of this book from the publisher. This does not my opinion of the book or the content of this review. I received no compensation and my review is voluntary.

Goodreads / Amazon / Barnes & Noble

Jessica Redmerski is a New York Times, USA Today and Wall Street Journal bestselling author and award winner who juggles several genres of fiction.She also writes as J.A. Redmerski.

Website / Goodreads / Facebook / Twitter

GIVEAWAY!
a Rafflecopter giveaway