Book Review: Breakdown by JR Tate

A situation of this magnitude had always been talked about – but could it ever really happen? Jake Shepherd is piloting a flight to Seattle when out of the blue, his aircraft falls from the sky. The power-grid across the United States crashes, leaving all computerized machines crippled, sending the country into a disastrous tailspin. Alice Shepherd is working the emergency room when hundreds of injured people pour in needing help. With no electricity, resources are limited—Once the back up generators fail, the hospital will not be able to handle the influx of patients being brought in, guaranteeing that all hell will break loose.

Everyone is speculating and panicking. No one knows what really happened. The only thing everyone can agree on is their simple, convenient, technological world is gone. Everyone is left to fight—Kill or be killed. Survive or die. 

My Review: 
Jake is a pilot whose plane is brought down by an EMP on a flight from Dallas to Seattle, leaving him and a handful of survivors stuck miles from home, somewhere around Colorado. His wife Alice tries to keep her mind off news of the crash by continuing her job as a nurse as her hospital copes with power loss and multiple people coming in injured. Her son Dylan is at school in town when disaster hits but his sister Sophie is at college in Boston and has to work out how to get away from the destroyed campus and a city falling apart.

Jake is the first to face disaster, working with co-pilot Colin to try and glide the plane down to land when they suddenly lose all power. The death toll on the aircraft leaves him full of guilt but he has to focus on keeping the few survivors alive. He starts by exploring the local area despite his own head injuries but finds the area deserted other than a deranged man with a knife at a nearby campground. With no sign of a search party and no people around, they know something bad has happened and they need to look after themselves. The survivors decide that staying is not an option and that they must begin a search for supplies for the long walk back to Dallas where most of them have family waiting. Trying to find food, water, transport and a way to carry the injured Colin is stressful enough but the fear of more bad people looking to pick a fight has them all on edge.

Alice is at the hospital when she gets word about the crash and fears that her husband may be dead. Unable to contact either of her children, Alice soon faces her own disaster when the EMP takes out the power at the hospital where she is working. People injured in car crashes are suddenly flooding into the hospital desperate for treatment and the loss of power means that the emergency generators are soon using up all of their fuel causing a shortage that could be fatal for the dependant patients. As Alice tries to help other people, she soon starts to think about her son alone in this disaster area and has to decide whether to stay and do her duty or go and find her son.

At her college campus, Sophie is freaked out to hear about the plane crash and can only hope that her dad is not on the flight. As she and her friend Danny leave the lecture, the EMP hits Boston and her campus is thrown into chaos as planes begin to crash in the area. Unable to do much to help the stricken around them, Sophie and Danny decide to grab a few essentials and get out of the city. But they are about to find out that even trying to gather a few supplies can be dangerous when there are others around them ready to take whatever they have, and their own skills at staying under the radar are sadly lacking.

We follow these three members of the family during the initial disaster part of the book. I'm not sure why the author decided not to show us what was happening to Dylan during the crisis. We are briefly told about what happened to him later in the book but I'd have preferred to see it as it happened. It is easy to pass judgement on things the characters do but to be honest, If I was Alice I'd have been leaving the hospital as soon as I got news that Jake's plane had crashed, because Dylan would need his mother instantly at that point and I'd want to spend more time tring to get in touch with Sophie. Yes Alice is a dedicated nurse and has a duty, but as a mother I'm surprised that getting to her son when the full crisis unfolded wasn't top priority. The addition of her estranged family into the plot was intriguing and it could play out in different ways as the series progresses.

I did get a bit annoyed with the characters. Jake has the hero complex where he feels that he is the only person capable of getting anything done. He insists on organising things at the crash site, he has to be the one to go for help with Larry despite his concussion, he has to go off and explore other areas alone, he has to make up and execute the plan. They are meant to be a group and we hardly get any page time for most of the survivors because it is all about Jake. His constant 'I'm a failure' self pity party was frustrating when it was mentioned so often as was his I can keep going like a superhero despite my crippling concussion. I wanted to see others like Becky doing more instead of it being all about Jake. I also got annoyed with how whiny Sophie got about the things she couldn't change. Yes things are horrible and it'll take ages to get back to Dallas but you just need to grit your teeth and get on with it instead of whining! I also got annoyed by the stupidity she and Danny showed with their choices. I wanted to strangle both of them.

It is also repetitive to have everyone asking what happened and everyone replying that they don't know. I believe it to be a realistic response if an EMP had actually happened but I didn't need to see it quite so often from so many characters. I was also not convinced by just how quickly all these society breakdowns happened. In a couple of days an entire town was empty due to the entire population being dead or missing? It seems doubtful to me. In the same time period, others have been captured to use as reproductive slaves? I just don't see all that going on in two days. There is also a hint of people being infected with something that makes them crazy or commit suicide but I don't know if this is going to develop. For me, it just wasn't good enough for me to want to read on with the series.

Read September 2019
2.5 stars.