I really enjoyed the series until this book. The idea of Grandma planning ahead for SHTF and leaving that legacy to her grandson first by her Will, then in the form of letters of encouragement, secret maps and words of wisdom is something that really appealed to me as a very clever writing tool.

Joe too was a very appealing character. He was likable and normal, the average guy trying to survive and help people.

However somewhere in the first third of this book, the characters started to act, well, out of character. Joe went from helpful to hard without any real transition. Chloe became timid. Then not timid. Then timid again. It was weird! I had to keep backing up the book to re-listen to scenes to make sure the characters talking were actually the ones I thought were talking.

The last part of the book jumped around like crazy. Joe became a father, then a grandfather in the blink of an eye. The people captured and flown away were just…gone. The resolution to this was a note from the author saying he was going to write a separate series about this– and that’s fine, but he needed to resolve what was happening here first!

I’m really sad to write this review, because until this book, I really liked this series a lot!