Gabe in the After is mglit that welcomes reluctant readers

I love it when a book that I’m not anticipating anything from utterly blows away expectations. Gabe in the After by Shannon Doleski is a book like that. Books like this feel short and make readers wish that there was more to this particular story that would’ve been told. However, at the same time, you be grateful that the book leaves you wanting more, rather than wearing out its welcome. It’s a tricky line to navigate between the two, but Gabe in the After does it with ease and will entrance even the most reluctant of upper elementary through middle school readers.

It’s really quite an accomplishment, especially when you consider the main thrust of the plot, in addition to its subplots. It’s a couple of years after the end of the world and there are 20 or so survivors who live on a small island just off the coast of Maine. Most of the island’s inhabitants are youth of varying ages. As the book goes on its main plot pivots to the point that you’ll feel as though you’ve been tricked or misdirected. It takes on an earnest, road trip vibe of discovery in a post-apocalyptic world where all hope is not lost and teenagers will still have crushes on one another.

That’s a tall order and it easily could’ve been a campy send-up on whatever dystopian book your mglit reader had in their book queue last month. However, Gabe in the After plays the situation very straight, alluding to what they think happened to most of civilization, in addition to realistically imagining how teenagers in the wild would handle its collapse.

Gabe Sweeney is our main character and it starts out with him going on patrol to another island. They’ve been posting messages on that neighboring island letting anyone know that they’ll be back the next day, just in case anyone else is alive. Gabe goes with Mud, his dog who he’s had since before things ended, but the group has never actually gone over what to do if anyone actually ever responded to their message or met them at the agreed-upon time.

Enter Relle Douglas, a girl who is about Gabe’s age and is seemingly not affected by the isolation that the end of the world has wrought. Gabe in the After is realistic fiction that really embraces the potential in its realism. Not much in the book is disclosed about it, but it’s been two years since a global pandemic changed the places that people live and the things that they can do. Set against that is our group of teens, with a couple of adults, who are forced to live on their own in the wilds of the northeast in what’s the new normal for the world.

It’s been a while since we used those terms and it’s amazing how quickly we’ve thankfully forgotten about them. When Relle joins the others on the island she assimilates quickly and brings about new feelings that Gabe has never felt. He’s not sure what to make of them, because, so far as they know, they’re the only ones alive, and is it socially acceptable to have a crush on someone if the world has ended?

This new person gives the group hope that others might be alive out there also. Gabe and another girl, Wynnie are tasked with exploring the areas far beyond where they’ve previously looked for supplies or people. The two, with Mud trotting not too far behind them, start their hike into the great beyond.

And here I thought that Gabe in the After would simply be a book about how a crush on someone could happen after the apocalypse. The chapters in the book build on each other in a natural, soft manner that provides readers the allusion that they’re watching the story of a group of friends being acted out in front of them. It’s a more realistic teen version of Friends, albeit after a pandemic has mysteriously killed most of the population. No, not really. If anything, it’s a more upbeat, relatable to middle-grade ages book that channels aspects of The Road.

It’s almost not fair to compare Gabe in the After to other books. Gabe cuts its own path and while it may have similarities to other books in terms of its setting, it’s not riding their coattails.

Gabe in the After is by Shannon Doleski and available on Amulet Books, an imprint of Abrams Books.

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