The first segment of my review is spoiler free and I will notate where I start spoiling some small things.
Firstly, the book has an interesting concept and the events of the world are executed well. It’s the apocalypse and bad shit happens so people have to band together. Problem is, everyone down to the children seems immune to trauma as traumatic things happen and people are okay immediately after the fact. The main character is a bit awkward yet people seem to respond how he wants him to. The world is in a bad way yet everything is really working out for our main character to the point he is on a constant winning streak where every event is positive for him. I’ve been waiting for this guy to struggle or arrive at some serious conflict yet he ends up fine and you might lose a random person of little significants who will be forgotten even by the people that have known this person shortly after.
The world feels like the characters are immune to lasting emotion, we lose someone and everyone’s sad… okay guys check this out!
Spoiler stuff will start here, it’s mostly detailed points to focus on where the issues are the most glaring. Early on the group is attacked by alien wolves in their base and a young child is mauled. You would think after the recovery this child would be an utter wreak and needing constant mental care? Nope she’s fine the next day acting as if there isn’t a care in the world. Her father isn’t dead, she hasn’t nearly died multiple times before this, and the world isn’t turned upside down as her fragile young mind struggles with making sense out of the apocalypse.
Our main character meets a group who is untrusting, shoots a guy terrorizing them within 2 minutes of being at their property and they decide to join him. You might say “well that guy terrorized them and killed their people.” This man just showed up and in the first few minutes, took the initiate to kill people. Would you not have concerns? Nope because everyone’s concerns end in mere moments.
We have an opportunity for a conflict character, soldier at a military base hates our main character because he’s a college kid made leader/baron. I can let that slide for early dislike, and other characters point out he’s an asshole. Our main character who is a college kid and social awkward believes that berating a man after deciding he doesn’t want him on his side “but will give him a chance” is a good idea. The soldier is naturally upset and ends of stewing over the situation. Yes there is a chance for opposition. In a world where main characters are perfect and completely agreeable we have opposition! Nope the guy is kicked out instead of playing along when he knows the rest of his people chose to go with this guy. As an adult you can read a room and tell when people agree with someone? Is this guy that unaware? He can’t tell the people cheering for him are on his side? This man would have been a perfect plant to spread seeds of doubt but no, he decides to try and stab him in the back and run for the door. How left field can you take something, it doesn’t even make sense that in a room of armed soldiers you would stab the leader and run for the door???? No one is doing that, I don’t care what you say, there isn’t a soldier who works at a missile silo making that decision. Do you realize the intelligence required for such a role? Yet this man’s lizard brain made that decision.
This book has a lot of potential but we need to see real conflict, someone has to question this guys leadership. The plot points go unexplained are kind of random, like how he can make a stronghold but no one else in his group could and he only met one other who was given the prompt? He knows about the invasion because of a message that was sent to everyone except people don’t know about it when the same prompt would have popped up worldwide? The perks are mostly ignored in their benefits to the point I have no real scale of his abilities. Yeah it’s mentioned early on but that’s it and he just spam heals himself to survive every situation. The most annoying thing though is the always right always smart, always better mc. It’s like how could others not understand attributes, so many people haven’t put points because they don’t understand it. Why not?? It’s not overly complex and I would have accepted people making poor decisions over, I don’t understand it… why not? What is strength??? Oh yeah it’s how strong you are. The mc just happens to do everything right and know everything because he plays video games.
I have 1 hour left and I don’t see this being remedied in an hour. It’s going to take a book to clean this up and I hope it’s simply early writing and the author just needs time to build some structure. The lack of character depth is what will be the death of this though, you can get by letting a lot fall to the wayside but paper thin characters who act as yes men don’t help the story progress and makes it a dull affair.