Review: Complete Comedown from First Book With a Lot of Unbelievable Situations
Rating: 2 out of 5
Date: 07 21, 2011
There might be a little bit of a spoiler in this review, depending upon your viewpoint, and I will preface it in bold letters below so you won't "peek" if you don't want to peek.I read the first installment of Desperate Times and enjoyed it quite a bit despite various spelling, word syntax, and other Kindle formatting errors - it is truly a page turner. I eagerly awaited this next installment of the series while waiting for the corrected version to be uploaded to the Kindle platform.  Despite taking the first version down in order to correct errors, this one had similar spelling, syntax, and other errors that were just plain annoying.First, the good - this is still an engaging story.  I am undecided if I will purchase the next installment(s) (the author hinted there may be just one or several more books in the series at the end of this one), and will probably wait until others take the plunge and see what their reviews are.** SPOILER ALERT **There were many things that were disappointing in this sequel.  Rather than go on and on about them, here they are, in no particular order:*If the National Guard is rounding everyone in the USA up (and I mean everyone) and putting them into concentration camps, just where are those concentration camps?  How can 350 million people be suddenly uprooted from their homes in the mega cities and housed, fed, and contained?  Are they in West Texas?*I think it's extremely unrealistic your best friends in the world will continually abandon their allegiance to your group and immediately have unwavering support to a cult, then come back, your loyal friends get murdered, then all of a sudden this same subgroup go to a new hippie / communist group, then come back again and more loyal friends get murdered - all at the same time of being welcomed back with no hard feelings and open arms by Ken, etc.?  Give me a break!*I found the situations, actions, and just about everything involved with the hippie commune hard to believe, especially with my comment on bullet point #1 above.  Feeding, housing, and sheltering over 200 people takes one enormous amount of food.  By the way, if the grocery stores are closed and there are no cows or grocery stores opn, where are all of the dairy products, eggs, potatos, pancakes etc. being acquired?  You must have one heck of a refrigerated warehouse somewhere!*After a while, gasoline goes bad.  That doesn't stop the characters from driving everywhere or engines starting right up.*The relationship with Julie is becoming a little unrealistic, as well as some of the scenes - am I really supposed to believe Julie will walk out of her cabin with snow on the ground, barefoot, then walk across a large field and watch her boyfriend converse with a bunch of people for a long time?  Then fall on a snow-covered engine she doesn't see because it is covered with snow (I can understand a small obstruction, but not an engine) and wind up with a face cast for months?  Come on.*I have a hard time believing a domesticated house cat walked over 200 miles and found the lake cabin to be reunited with Patty.*The author made a big point of telling us the main character buried an M-16 and other weapons, yet when he really needed one there was no mention of it and he has to drive a snowmobile back to Ken's and back to go get a firearm?  Maybe the author forgot that point.While the overall story lines are still compelling, you can't help having the doubts and thoughts on the above points (and others) pop up in your head while you are reading, and you just want to call "bs" to all of it.If you really enjoyed Desperate Times 1, this one will probably be a disappointment to you.  It certainly was to me.