Review: Sometimes the Best Plans Fall Apart
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 02 15, 2013
When I first heard this book was coming out, I thought, well let us see what Mr. McDonald's take on the Collapse of society will look like.  After I finished reading it last night, I was still a little stunned by the horror of this aptly named "Disaster".  That is not to say I did not enjoy it, because I did, a lot, but the grim spectre of how things might go was just a bit overwhelming.  This author is very capable of surprising you when you least expect it, and here is another fine example.I don't want to give too many spoilers, but the story starts off like a lot of books in this genre, with a family deciding the economy was not going to get any better so they needed to make plans to prepare for an uncertain future.  These plans involve them moving to the farm Dorrie, the wife, inherited from her grandmother in the country.  Thus begins the family's trek out of the Atlanta suburbs and things seem to be going pretty good for them at first.Max, the distracted husband of Dottie and father to their two kids, seems a bit slow on the uptake from the beginning but he is a good-hearted, easy-going kind of guy that readers will take to, even if he is a little soft.  They make good friends with their nearest neighbors and set about trying to adjust to a life in the country.  Then, suddenly, things go horribly, terribly wrong and the second half of the story takes on a darker, bloodier tone.  As a warning to readers, bad things happen in this book, or at least are alluded to, and a couple of times I felt myself cringe.  The violence is quick, harsh and savage and by the end we see Max transformed by his experiences.  Fans of Mr. McDonald's other works will recognize some familiar themes here, but the slow buildup is scant preparation for the events that unfold later in the book.  I am hooked on this story line and I can't wait for the next book to come out.  Bravo.