Review: Action-packed and suspenseful, but poorly edited and the characters are confusing (and confused)
Rating: 3 out of 5
Date: 08 4, 2013
I read this book in one sitting and plan to get the next one in the series, so I actually did enjoy it enough to be hooked.  I found myself caring about the characters, once I figured out who all the J-word people were by sketching them out (Jeff, Jason, Jessica, James -- was that really necessary?). However, as many reviewers have noted, the editing is terrible, especially in the second half of the book, and this is distracting from the drama of this chilling and brutal life-and-death PA adventure story.  It makes the story come across as more juvenile than it really is.  The attempts at romance scenes and thoughts are also pretty clumsy (the author may wish to solicit input from women he knows on how to improve such scenes).PARTIAL SPOILER ALERT:1) I could not understand the motivations of some of the supposedly well-prepped and savvy characters, e.g., Jeff , expressing outrage at Sean for having shot a bad guy without being shot at first during that immediate encounter, even where the bad guys had previously done, well, really bad things). Surely a doomsday prepper would understand you do not do warning shots or Miranda warnings with known thugs when SHTF.  It also did not seem credible that these hard-core preppers would have been so casual about their advance security personnel preps before the SHTF, though it is understandable that once under fire, again and again, they could get tired and worn out and become less vigilant as they try to gain a sense of normalcy in their lives..  You may have  lots of guns and ammo and food etc., but what good are these things in a big event when you do not initially have enough people in your  group to be a formidable defensive force against looters , rapists, and killers?  Perhaps they only anticipated a small event, where partial Rule of Law would still prevail.2). This is unfortunately another book with Harley-riding motorcyclists portrayed as bad guys.  This is sad, as many Harley riders in real life are dentists, doctors, and accountants and not thugs.What seemed to stretch credibility was that we are supposed to believe that a). the Harleys survived the EMP (surely all but the oldest models would not have made it, b) the hoodlums riding the Harleys would have known how to ride well in snow and ice (most , frankly, at least out here in CA, do not), and c) none of the Harley riders had any doubts or redeeming positive character attributes (even Hells Angels have complex personalities and codes of honor).  They were like zombie bad-guy targets in a videogame, monolithically portraying "Evil".3) Some reviewers consider the book sexist and too focussed on rape and violence against women.  However, if you look at the history of war, rape and violence against women is more the rule than the exception (just ask any woman who survived WW2 Poland or Germany, or Bosnia).  When the Rule of Law breaks down, people revert to animalistic behavior.  Further, the women in the book were doing their best to be strong -- armed, shooting back, fighting etc., some were just better at it than others. It is not to be held against women  (or men) that it makes sense for each person, whatever sex, in a life and death struggle to do what they are best at to fight the enemy (which in the case of a petite woman may not be hand to hand combat).I congratulate the author on his first effort, and my comments are meant to be constructive. I look forward to Volume II.