The Fireman

Hands down my favorite Joe Hill book to date! Once I got into this I couldn't put it down and I stayed up past midnight last night to finish reading it. The Fireman was eerily reminiscent of "Fahrenheit 451" and his father, Stephen King's "The Stand" (which he acknowledges in the introduction, as well as giving JK Rowling some love. How can you not love this man??). Instead of a plague taking over the world, a spore is. Called dragonscale, it infects people causing their bodies to become "tattooed or written on with the scale" and eventually they start smoking, combust and die. When Nurse Harper contracts it her husband leaves in disgust, hoping he doesn't get it from her. Alone and pregnant she finds herself being helped as a man known as The Fireman because he has learned to control his dragonscale and weaponize it to defend himself. As the world slips further into decline and despair, Harper and the fireman hide in a little colony of the infected, trying to hide from cremation crews and other uninfected people who are soo scared of contracting dragonscale that they kill anyone they see with it. Together they learn to control and manage their dragonscale, even seeing it as a gift. Wonderfully written, the characters were tragically beautiful and sarcastic and at the end of the world I would want them by my side. LOVED this book!