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Ann Burden, a sixteen-year-old girl is - as far as she knows - the only person left in the world after a nuclear war. She has survived because the radiation has not touched the valley where she lives.
One day, unexpectedly, a man wearing the only existing "safe-suit" against radioactivity arrives. Ann is frightened but when the man, Mr. Loomis, becomes ill, Ann takes care of him. When Mr. Loomis becomes better, he starts to react violently towards Ann, begins to control her and even tries to rape her. So Ann flees from the house. She hides in the forest. After some time Ann is forced to return to the house. When Ann arrives, Mr. Loomis shoots at her, injures her, but Ann can run away. Mr. Loomis wants to hunt her down with her own dog. To escape from this nightmare
Ann steals the safe-suit, planning to leave the valley. Once again she wants to have a talk with Mr. Loomis. He is very angry that Ann has stolen the safe-suit but doesn't shoot her. He even pleads with Ann to stay. But Ann walks away into deadness,
hoping to find other people.
The setting is a valley in America spared from a nuclear holocaust and destruction unlike the rest of the world. It is an adventure story, it is imaginary but could happen as well, because today a nuclear war does not seem so unrealistic. Ann is helpful, strong, hopefull and optimistic, in her desperate situation she does not give up hope, makes plans for the future and even takes care of Mr. Loomis when he gets ill. Mr. Loomis is an extremely strange character. At the beginning of the story, he is mysterious because he becomes ill with radiation poisoning and is unable to speak to Ann. While lying in bed he seems to be a kind, hopeful, adventurous person, but when he gets better he becomes aggressive, he wants to decide everything and takes possession of everything. In the end, he seems to understand what he did wrong, but the reader cannot be sure. Ann is willing to compromise, she could live together with any person when she has enough freedom. But Mr. Loomis is egoistical, does not care about other person's problems and would do anything to reach his goal. The situation escalates because of Mr. Loomis.
The story is enthralling and well-developed, it is fast-flowing and the reader does not have to stop and think about past events. It ends with a note of optimism, Ann leaves the valley to search for other people who might have survived the war.
The book is written in the form of a diary that Ann writes, it is written in everyday language. You can understand everything very well and it seems as if everything has really happened. After reading this book the reader will be able to describe every place of the valley in which Ann lives.
This story shows us how it would be if we used nuclear weapons in a war. It shows that even the last two people in the world would fight about the smallest thing instead of being happy to be alive.
The title of this story got its name from a book Ann read in bible school, in which the letters of the alphabet were described by using characters in the bible. A is for Adam. As Adam is supposed to be the first person on earth, Ann thinks Z for Zachariah stands for the last person on earth.
It is an excellent book, it makes me think about our environment much more. It was very interesting to read, because it shows how horrifying life would be if I had survived a nuclear war. With this plot it was hard to put the book down.
I should mention that the last part of the book was finished by O'Brien's wife and daughter, as O'Brien died while still writing the book.
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