Strange Exit is Parker Peevyhouse’s second novel. In her first novel, Echo Room, she explores the depths, twists, and turns of the human mind in a sci-fi escape room setting. In this story, she continues along that same vein against the backdrop of a virtual reality machine aboard a failing spaceship.
The story opens with a 17-year-old Lake walking the streets of a post- Nuclear Winter San Francisco in search of survivors to save. The roads are mostly empty. Her encounters with others are few and far between, but she doesn’t give up. No matter how things appear, she knows there are more survivors and that it’s up to her to rescue them. She tries her luck at what’s left of the San Francisco Zoo. There are no animals left, but she comes across a boy named Taren and his dog in the Tiger House.