Franklin Horton writes his characters as everyday people in bad situations. Whether the premise for the apocalypse is believable to you or not, the characters are well-developed and enjoyable to read, you feel for the characters and what they are going through.
In a world gone sideways, the main character is stuck far from home. He is generally a normal guy but with a bit of a paranoid side that he has been doing light preps for years so is a little better off than most people.