Reviews

Great book with great characters, It took me a while to get into the book because I kept comparing it to The Stand. If you do that then you will hate this book, but if you can accept it for a different kind of post apocalypse then it is a great book. I loved the characters the good guys and the bad ones too, they were all interesting and I was never really sure where the story was headed until the very end, and it was a great ending too.

missywhidden's review against another edition

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adventurous dark hopeful mysterious tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.25

dnandrews797's review against another edition

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5.0

This was without a doubt the best apocalypse novel I’ve ever read. All the characters were unique and well developed and the chapters were direct, emotional, and well paced. Even though this book was almost a thousand pages, it felt like they just flew by while I was reading it.
Swan is an excellent protagonist, a literal and figurative symbol of hope, she is the perfect foil for our villain, the relentless and terrible incarnation of death itself.
The variation of the wasteland is excellent as well, the industrial destruction of big cities giving way to the extinction and skeletal remains of plant life in the rural sectors fleshes out the world and keeps it interesting as the characters journey from place to place.
The evil acts of our antagonists in the form of Colonel Macklin and Roland when they think they’re doing the “righteous thing” makes them much more believable and even gives them a sense of pity as the story grows and evolves.
Overall, an epic tale of life vs death, hope vs despair, and how to carry on in the face of adversity and insurmountable odds makes this book a beautiful epic of second chances and the perseverance of the human spirit. I’d recommend this to anyone

youssefahmad7's review against another edition

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5.0

I haven't read a book that I had liked so much in such a long time. I loved the characters, the pacing, and the grotesque setting Robert engrossed me in. At first it was a read very much akin to King's The Stand (despite the plights), then later it veered off to its very much thrilling line. This book delved into human choices, rights and wrongs facing the end of times, and explored the rise and fall of societies. I loved it.

njdarkish's review against another edition

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3.0

This was an interesting read. There were some parts I really loved about this book-- Swan, Sister, and Josh were all fantastic characters, there were some truly horrifying sections, such as the "Blue Light Special" section, and Friend was a creepy villain. I liked the Job's Masks and what they did. I thought the blend of nuclear apocalypse and magical elements were pretty cool in most parts.
But the Army of Excellence and its associated characters weren't fun to read about. They felt almost cartoonish in their level of evil and even their role in tying the story together really didn't work for me that well. Every time Roland and Macklin were on the page I read more quickly because I really wasn't too interested in what they were doing. Also, it was really hard to ground Roland in reality because his mindset was very childish (like an 8 year old), so it took a long time to realize in the earlier sections of the novel he was 15. And that mindset didn't seem to change at all as he aged 7 years, which didn't strike me as realistic at all.

aestas's review against another edition

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adventurous dark mysterious tense medium-paced

5.0

mcmallow's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional hopeful sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

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