I’m really enjoying Abrahams’ books. His Alt Apocalypse series is really good. This book is in the same vein – apocalypse-y. Abrahams is good about continually moving the plot and characters forward. There are times for characters to breath, think, and reflect but in a natural way; unlike what you see in such media like The Walking Dead, for example. The story is fairly straight forward – a family is out camping on vacation and when “the event” happens they try and make it back home. The main character, “Rock” (yes, they do make a Dwayne Johnson joke about it), is a smart school teacher who is kind of a prepper. While he, at times, is super smart it doesn’t become a McGuyver situation in how I thought it was going to work out. He’s just a father/husband trying to protect his wife and kids in a bad situation and does it fairly smartly. There are no big twists or surprises here but there doesn’t really need to be.
A few areas where the story kind of lost me is a couple of things. First, before whatever “the event” was in this book there was a worldwide plague that occurred and killed a lot of people. That isn’t really revealed until about halfway through. While this does explain a few of the prepper people you meet in the story, there isn’t much change in the world from such an event that occurred so recently. Another thing is that society breaks down a little too quickly and factions rise up a little too quickly as well. Not huge misses but the world seemed to be missing some buildings elements. If you’re needing an Abrahams fix until the next Alt Apocalypse book, this will do. Final Grade – B +