Reviewed by Kayti Nika Raet for Readers' Favorite

In All is Silence by Robert L. Slater, seventeen-year-old Washington native Lizzie has just lost her mother, little brother, and step-father to a deadly pandemic that swept through the world. One of the remaining 1% that is immune to the deadly virus, she thinks she's all alone at first until she encounters two friends, Zach and Nev. As the weeks go by and other survivors join their group, Lizzie soon discovers that her father, whom she hadn't seen since she was three, is still alive. But as he is way down in Texas and she's in Washington, they agree to meet in Utah. However, this post-apocalyptic road trip is fraught with various pitfalls and rednecks with guns. A fast paced, adrenaline soaked novel, All is Silence is the first book in the Deserted Lands series and is a perfect book for any reluctant reader.

I really enjoyed All is Silence. Lizzie, or Crazy Lizzie to her friends, makes for a rather dark character. A former cutter who has occasional suicidal tendencies, she nonetheless manages to be very compelling. In fact, all the characters manage to be interesting and, as the book progresses, Zach and Lizzie's father sometimes pop in with their own point of view (each POV is separated by the cursive first letter of their name). Robert L. Slater is a very talented writer and he slowly ramps up the action and suspense until you're flipping the pages almost too fast to read the words. With its cliffhanger ending, I’ll definitely be waiting (impatiently) for the sequel.