What do you do when the world as you know it ends? Run!! Laura and Mike Davis built an idyllic life with their four children, friends and family nearby in the beautiful Brandywine River Valley. Dreams and goals came to an abrupt end soon after Hurricane Sandy hit the east coast. The media reported that a virus was discovered in wood soaked by seawater, thought to have the potential to decimate the population. It became the excuse to relocate thousands of citizens from the coast, burning entire beach towns, the only known way to eradicate the virus, possibly the gateway to the Apocalypse.
Soon, rumors spread that napalm is what the authorities used to burn without evacuating the people. A neighbor warned Laura and Mike that their town would be next as the destruction moves inland. Is it a drastic way to halt the spread of disease, or is there another catalyst? In survivalist mode during the post-apocalyptic time, the family uses the doomsday prepper skills Mike has acquired in his quest for self-sufficiency and to save the life of his family, including his amazing son who was born with Downs syndrome.
My Review:
Laura and her family are warned by a friend that their town has been targeted for destruction with napalm bombs so they start to get their things ready to leave at a moment's notice. When it comes, they barely have time to get out of there before their former lives are totally destroyed and the couple and their kids head for a family homestead in Yuma with Laura's friend Kelly and Mike's parents. They see the signs of destruction as they cross the country which leaves them wondering if Yuma is going to be the safe place to start a new life that they hoped it would be.
I first met these characters in a short story prequel called Burn District, which covers the family getting that first warning and preparing to flee, then the two hour warning and actual attack on their town as they try to flee to safety. My review of this prequel can be read here. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/23506044-burn-district It has taken me a while to get round to reading the first full book in the series so I thought it was time to see what happens next and decide whether or not to continue with the series. I really liked the characters and thought that this was a different take on an apocalypse event. Now on to my review of the first book in the series.
We follow Laura, Mike, their daughters Elise and Carin, son Ned, and Down Syndrome son Mike Jr, Mike's parents Randy and Carol and Laura's work friend Kelly as they go to Yuma to live with Laura's dad Steve who owns a property there. Laura's sister Jenna is estranged from her family after making hurtful comments about Mike Jr so she is not with them and Laura is unsure what she wants to do about it. Mike's brother Dennis also has nothing to do with his family and is not there either. I suspect that we might find out more about them in future books and it would certainly be interesting if they joined the group with their own friends. I liked seeing how everyone settled in to Yuma after their road trip and start looking at preparing for their future. I liked the scavenging trips where they come into contact with a mixture of good and bad survivors, and this was the more interesting of the two plots.
The second plot we follow is that of Miranda, a blogger who is trying to expose the lies of the government over this so called virus which has been the excuse for mass murder and the relocation of people. She provides people with the story that the burn is really to get rid of those who are a drain on resources. The government decide it is time to get rid of Miranda and her family are also forced to flee from a burning in their own area. We see the government conspiracy starting to unravel as those involved in the burning start to turn on each other or are targeted by other forces at play. I did find the idea of this interesting but the collapse of the conspiracy seems to happen very quickly after we have just met everyone involved in it so it all seemed a little bit rushed. I'd have expected this plot to be drawn out over at least two books before it all fell apart. I also didn't much like the characters we met during this plot especially the opinionated Victor and Grace.
My issue with this book is that I started to dislike quite a few of the characters, now that I'm finding out more about them. I don't know why Laura even invited Kelly when she treats her so badly all the time. I do agree that Kelly is lazy when it comes to certain chores but she does her share of scavenging. Every time Kelly talks to a male, Laura is on about her 'flirting' even when she isn't. We do see from Kelly's own thoughts that she is not interested in Mike at all, and the impression that she was is the result of an attempted joke she made when drunk at Laura's house once. Then Laura gets mad at Kelly and Steve briefly sharing an interest in each other and giving Kelly the cold shoulder. I'm not sure why Laura has turned into such a bitch but it was annoying. When Laura's 16 year old daughter falls in love with a stranger she's known for days and decides to leave with him, her and Mike just agree to it which is crazy in the middle of an apocalypse.
Randy becomes a right pain too. When he met Carol she was already pregnant with Dennis and instead of taking him on as his son as promised, he verbally abused Dennis and made his life a misery until Mike was born. Now that Randy had his own son, he tried to make amends with Dennis but it was too late and Dennis left home the first chance he got. The fact that Carol did nothing to stop any of this puts them both on my shit list along with Laura. So when Carol starts to moan about how dull life has become living in a trailer with the lazy Randy, I had no sympathy for her whining. The most interesting character in this book is Mike Jr. I really liked the introduction of a character with Down Syndrome and the fact that he is not only the nicest character, he is more than capable of looking after himself, contributing to the new society, and protecting his family when it is required. Mike Jr is certainly my favourite.
There were elements of the book that I did like. I liked certain characters especially Steve and Mike Jr, and Miranda and her friends were interesting too. In fact I wish the author had focused more on Miranda rather than dragging her disfunctional family into it. It just filled the book with more characters to not like. I liked seeing the real story behind the burns and that conspiracy was more interesting than the Victor roadtrip. I also liked the scavenging missions of the other plot and every scene with Steve and Mike Jr. I feel that plot has a lot of potential if the bitchy angst was diluted a bit. I did feel that it took away from the plot and that the conspiracy part evaporating did happen too quick to make sense. There were certainly issues with plot and characters that reduced my enjoyment of the book.
Am I going to read the next book? I'm not sure. I sort of want to know what happens but it's not really top of my priority list at the moment.
Read August 2019
2.5 stars.
