The second book in an interesting series, the first book started with a bang with nuclear war and this book follows it up with a CA wild fire of massive proportion. Again, Abrahams does a great job with the characters. You learn a few new tidbits about the reoccurring characters that are in this series. My only problem is that I kind of forget who is a main character and who’s a supporting character. Especially since some of the main characters died early in book one I wasn’t sure who they were by name yet.
The story is fine however the scope is really hard to gauge. Since I’m not from CA maybe that is why as I don’t know the landmarks or scope. I will say there are a couple points where the story kind of anticipated some of my critiques of the story. With nuclear war, that’s on a global scale. However, with a wildfire, it’s really only LA that’s affected. A character actually makes that point too which adds to that person’s character detail. Another items is that I get the wild fire happens in the forest but then some salon explodes and LA is in flames. I couldn’t really get a sense of timing here and there isn’t an explanation of how any of it happen or if it was related. There’s a character who has an internal thought that kind of states this as well. I do have to say it’s a little bit not satisfying to get a hint of it. Like, am I suppose to assume the wild fire had spread and taken out the building or are they two separate events that may have had terroristic intentions?
Again, the story starts with the event but it didn’t feel as if characters were really making choices a lot. It seemed like they were reacting to other characters or just following along. Even still; enjoyed the book, enjoying the series, and can’t wait for the next one. Final Grade – B+