Content level – endless swearing, very little sexual content: nothing descriptive, and only a few times throughout all nine books, one section regarding prisoners and rape. Very, very violent, including descriptions of hacking deaths and consumption of humans living and dead, including children. If a movie were created it would be NC-17.
Premise – the premise is an interesting and almost plausible take on the zombie genre. There are holes that are unexplained and some that are mentioned but unexplored. Given the pandemic, there is relevance.
Characters – the characters didn’t change much, though the story implies they were permanently changed, and there is some attempt to demonstrate it, the reality is that if they had to go through the experience again they wouldn’t do much different. They were fleshed out enough, but I never felt connection to the characters, nor a desire to learn more about them. More than cardboard cutouts, less than friends.
Story and journey – there’s a story and journey there, sure, but it’s very repetitive, and by book 8 I was speeding it up past 2.5 and wavering between stopping altogether, or speeding further just to see how things turn out. The main character takes a lot of time exploring their thoughts but not feelings about what is going on. In fact there is very little that is felt throughout the book. Attempted logic and very thin philosophy is the bread and butter of the slower parts.
Ending – I shouldn’t have continued once the story tired me. The ending resolves one recurring drumbeat that starts early in the series, but literally nothing else. We don’t see how/if the primary issue of the series is resolved, and the ending was very rushed. The last half of book nine suddenly everything quiets down, then the book ends with little fanfare.
Plot holes – numerous, but not glaring. An example is one character being saved by bullets taking out their foes from seemingly nowhere, then running for 20 minutes and finding the shooter – a friend – and describing being a mile from the site of their fight. The friend was apparently such a good shot that they could hit a four inch target 1,500 meters away with a standard military assault rifle, standard ammunition, and no scope. Solar panels mean there’s electricity in the home even during a power outage, but the reality is that 95% of all solar installations go out when the power is out. You can wear cheap suspenders of disbelief and ignore these issues, but if you spend any time creating a model of what’s happening in your kind you’ll find lots of little and big holes.
Performance – the narrator was ok, but did not do an adequate job of separating the character voices. During back and forth conversations it was only possible to tell characters apart through context and characterization – speaking habits of the characters – as well as frequent “…”, Cindy said style dialogue. But it often didn’t matter, so was only an issue a few times throughout the series.
I finished it, I won’t return it, but I’m glad I got it on sale, and I’ll probably remove it from my library so none of my family makes the mistake of starting it. Put something else on unless you’re really into the zombie genre, or want a violent action audiobook that doesn’t require much attention.