I'm giving this book two stars because somehow it kept me reading until the end, despite all the problems I had with it.

In a post-apocalyptic world, "Sugar" is a Type 1 diabetic who will die without insulin. Learning how to make it becomes her quest. The answer to whether she did or did not was what kept me reading.

Other than that? The characters were flat, stock characters who existed only to enhance Sugar, who was not a super well-developed character herself, but one who relied upon her illness and a few personality quirks to define her. The book also seemed to turn on her romances, each episode in her life being categorized by the man she was with.

Also, the very ending made me want to punch things. She didn't know birth control pills had an expiration date either. Hahaha, that Sugar, she's so comically stupid.

[I received this book free from NetGalley in exchange for an unbiased review.]
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I am a huge "what-if" fan, but one of the questions I've never really thought about is "What if the world ends but you still need your meds?" Most post-apocalyptic TV shows and movies talk about the need for emergency meds, but I never noticed the lack of maintenance medicine, even though my niece is on daily seizure meds and also is type-1 diabetic. Apparently Travis Norwood has considered this though. Otherwise we wouldn't have a book whose main character is type-1 diabetic and requires insulin numerous times throughout the day.

I loved the premise and fairly original plot. It reminded me a little of TWD, minus the zombies; the main character, Sugar, even travels through Georgia for a bit. I liked Sugar most of the time, although she did occasionally annoy me.

There were a few moments that seemed a little hard to believe but Norwood is a decent writer and I was willing to accept that after the world as we know it is over, anything could be possible. In reality, my biggest issue was with the pigs. They would have gone feral months after the farmers died-they would not have stayed docile and friendly for a couple years. But even though to me this seems like common knowledge, I asked a couple co-workers who had no clue so I decided to let it go while I was reading.

All-in-all I would read it again.

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Sugar Scars by Travis Norwood is a book that caught my attention on NetGalley because of the basic premise: diabetic girl trying to survive the apocalypse. It's very Defying Doomsday-themed. I hesitated a bit because it appeared to be self-published and from an author I'd never heard of before. (Turns out it's not quite self-published, but it's close enough and as you'll see, I was right to hesitate.)

Living after the apocalypse really isn’t that hard for most of the survivors. The virus killed all but 1 in 10,000. The few remaining people are left in a world of virtually unlimited resources. Grocery stores overflowing with food and drink. Thousands of empty houses to pick from.

But one survivor, a nineteen-year-old girl, requires more than simple food, water and shelter. As a type 1 diabetic her body desperately needs insulin to stay alive. With civilization gone, no one manufactures it anymore. She hoards all the insulin she can find, but every day marches toward the end of her stash of vials. She has a choice. Accept her fate and death, or tackle the almost insurmountable task of extracting and refining the insulin herself.

Brilliant scientists struggled to make the first insulin. What hope does a high school dropout have?

I'm going to start with the negatives. This book wasn't all bad, though, so be sure to at least skim the lower paragraphs for its good points.

The editing. I mean, it could have been worse, but until I got to the end and read the acknowledgements I would have guessed that it hadn't been past a proper editor. Apparently it had. The writing was clunky on a sentence level and repetitive on a paragraph level (we don't need to be constantly and thoroughly reminded of things we learnt in previous chapters) and the plot was severely lacking for a good chunk of the book. I almost stopped reading when I was about a fifth of the way in because it just wasn't pleasant to read and nothing much was happening. The only reason I persevered was because the blurb said Sugar, the protagonist, would have to try to make insulin herself. It took her ages to even realise that she needed to make insulin. Most of the plot was just things randomly happening, recorded very linearly in Sugar's diary (although it wasn't that diary-like apart from the occasional reminders).



The structure kind of made it more boring. To make up for not putting the book down 20% of the way in, I ended up skipping bits to make up for pushing through. Mostly that meant skimming paragraphs, especially the more repetitive ones. I did not skip any large chunks.

The most interesting part of the book was the quest for insulin and the (mis-) adventures Sugar had along the way. More's the pity that the quest was introduced so late in the book. This was partly because Sugar was a pretty ignorant character, which was a little frustrating to read. (And partly because of the linear structure.) It took her quite a while to realise that drugs have expiration dates. Also, while I understand her being used to the internet and not a library user, it was a bit disconcerting that she was shocked that the university had a library. I mean, it was in character, but wow.

Some other notes: the book included (non-explicit and not on the page) paedophilia and rape. Also, the bit that took place in Brazil was faintly racist. But at least in Brazil Sugar got to encounter more relevant female characters than on any other of her trips, so there's that. There's also some gore, mostly associated with getting pancreases out of pigs (but also with killing bad people).

I'm not sure I'd particularly recommend Sugar Scars. It wasn't terrible, but the actual prose definitely wasn't good. However, I also realise this may not bother some people. If you're reading for the insulin-making narrative, the story does pay off, but it's a bit of a slog to get there. If you want to check how much the prose will bother you, maybe have a look at the ebook sample; it's pretty consistent throughout.

3 / 5 stars

You can read more of my reviews on my blog. ( )