TL;DR: Decent story, great narration, cheesy dialogue, men are creepy and/or clueless, women are bi-polar and/or manipulative, unrealistic resources.
I always enjoy Kevin Pierce’s narrations, it’s like having your grandfather read to you. It is very relaxing. Sara Morsey nails the voice of Joe’s grandmother perfectly.
The story is average, and the dialogue is very unrealistic. Some of the things the characters say to each other are just plain ridiculous. For example, a group of raiders attack a group of survivors and when one of them gets shot, he asks them “Why did you shoot me?” Really? And this happens more than once. The best way I can describe the conversations would be is this is what a Hallmark Movie of the Week would sound like. All the language used is rated PG. Even the bad guys refer to their assaults on women as “making love”. And adults use kid friendly words and phrases even when they are talking amongst themselves with no kids around. And don’t even get me started on how many times the “Pervert” is used. If you had to drink a shot every time that word is used, you wouldn’t be able to finish more than one or two chapters per session.
There is a bit of a creep factor in it as well due to almost all the adult men making inappropriate comments to the younger girls such as how beautiful they are and how nice their figure is. None of the survivors ever do anything inappropriate, it’s just that the comments are creepy. If was only one character it could be considered a quirky character flaw since no one does anything improper. But in this series, most of the men do it which, in my personal experience, isn’t even close to reality. If me or any of my buddies ever heard someone make comments like the ones in the book to girls of any age, we would have a chat with them afterward about showing proper respect.
The women in the story bounce back and forth between being smart and capable to overly emotional and dumb. A character will be described as much smarter than their peers and amazing with a firearm, but then in the next chapter they will say some of the dumbest things or ask a question with a painfully obvious answer. Or, at one point, literally run out in the middle of a road and get hit by a truck. Seriously? You didn’t hear the truck driving down a dirt road in the middle of a quite night? You didn’t see the headlights? Come on…
Also unbelievable is how one of the groups could supply large cargo containers for trade, and then deliver them along with a truck with a crane mounted on it to help place the containers, but no one could ever figure out where their main base was. How the heck do you hide a bunch of semi-trucks and large construction equipment when you are confined to the main roads to get from point A to point B? It isn’t like they can go off-road or cut through pastures.
My final annoyance is how the military is portrayed. And by that, I mean not at all. They are nowhere to be seen until the end of the last book, and when you do meet them, they say things just as stupid as the raiders and other bad guys. “Hey there girl, why don’t you dump your husband and come with me. I’m a *real* man.”
Did I finish the series, yes. Because sometimes I just don’t like myself and feel I need to be punished. Also, I really do like listening to Kevin Pierce read to me. Also, I just can’t bring myself to not finish a book once I start it. Except for that one book, but that doesn’t count.