A look at our over reliance on technology mixed in with a terrifying encounter with a tribe of Bigfoot!

It's a new book by Max Brooks, author of <i>World War Z</i> aka my favorite zombie novel/the greatest zombie novel ever written, the one that if you haven't read yet you should totally get on posthaste. This book is about Bigfoot, a creature about which I didn't really have feelings before, but thank you Max Brooks because now I've been forced to consider these creatures beyond that one game thread in Red Dead Undead. In a continuation on my personal theme for this absolutely neverending month that is March 2020 wherein every book I read is somehow about the world ending, this book has Bigfoot but it's also about when a volcano erupts and cuts you off and everyone outside of your little high-tech eco-community starts losing their shit. Brooks does a nice job illustrating the way characters break down and reform under pressures like a lack of more than a few week's worth of food and a troop of displaced, bloodthirsty omnivores in the woods who seem to have decided that you and your friends are tasty. I especially appreciate the evolution of diary-writer Kate Holland, whose journal kept at her therapist's behest comprises the bulk of the story - in these times of high anxiety, may we all find such fortitude. There's also a very high creep factor and quite a bit of gruesome death; at some point I was scoffing about how I wasn't particularly afraid of these Bigfoot creatures because what had they even done that was so bad? and then someone died a really nasty death and I was properly chastened and thoroughly grossed out. Since this is the only book on this topic I've ever read it seems unfair to call it the greatest Bigfoot novel ever writen, but it is a tense, gory, good time.

I went into this cautiously optimistic, but about a third of the way became engrossed. Really a excellent read. Being from Seattle this was particularly enjoyable. Thank you Netgalley.

A howling good yarn.
Getting back to nature can be a problem when nature gets back at you. Mount Rainier blows its top and a group of well off artists and professionals are trapped in a luxurious rustic community and something’s out there that wants them for dinner. Satirical and funny; a great read.

It's not World War Z, in that it doesn't have the same global statement - this is a much more localized drama (although it still has things to say about encroaching open nature) and thus is perhaps less useful in the classroom. It felt more gruesome to me (I just don't remember as much discussion of entrails in the WWZ, but I could be wrong) and at times was a bit much. I would recommend it to students who enjoyed WWZ, but with tempered enthusiasm.

I'll be honest and confess that I haven't read anything by Max Brooks since World War Z. I wasn't expecting a complete rehash, at least style-wise, but it was great in a soothingly familiar way to see the novel start off with a diary entry. This was quite a ride, and I imagine some readers may find getting through the first chapters tough, but the secondary accounts on the incident help flesh out that yes, something big and terrible does happen so enjoy these lovely slice-of-life diary entries for now. The way it unfolds and is presented with contrasting, if not explanatory, excerpts from other works gives you horrible ideas of what else will happen and what people are going to do. They did warn you from the start that the story ends with a missing persons case; a prime example of leaving the readers wanting more. (As a sustaining member of my local NPR station, I was also happy at the "cameos" that featured Kai Ryssdal and Terry Gross in the book.)

Devolution tells the account of a Bigfoot attack in Greenloop through diaries entries from a town resident as well as interview transcripts from other individuals close to the incident. Greenloop is an eco-community founded by Tony Durant. Located in the woods, Greenloop allows residents to experience nature's vast wonders while also being within commuting distance to Seattle, Washington. Unfortunately, Greenloop's remote location becomes its own downfall. The town is soon isolated from the rest of the world with the volcanic eruption of Mount Rainier.

Greenloop's story is mainly told through a firsthand account from Kate Hudson. Kate is not your typical hero. Upon Kate and her husband's arrival at Greenloop, she constantly looks to Tony, as well as his wife, Yvette, for guidance and leadership. Kate starts to doubt the Durants' leadership after the Mount Rainier explosion, so she turns to Mostar, another town resident, for advice. It is through Mostar's mentorship that Kate becomes a hero out of necessity.

Brooks made a smart choice in choosing Kate Hudson to narrate the events that occurred at Greenloop. Readers can see how the experiences at Greenloop easily led Kate to become the strong, capable leader that the town needed to combat the Bigfoot attack. Kate arrived at Greenloop with the intention of starting over with her husband. It is only because of the Mount Rainer explosion and subsequent Bigfoot sightings that Kate realizes that someone needs to protect Greenloop. Devolution demonstrates how any human, when placed in such extreme situations as those that occurred in Greenloop, will revert to his or her more animalistic instincts to survive.

In "Devolution," Max Brooks performs several major inversions of one of his bestselling work, "World War Z." Once again the fragile high-tech modern day has been suddenly upset by what were supposed to be only mere myths. In the aftermath of the horror, the author-reporter uses first-hand resources to try and get a picture of the horror that's occurred. However, instead of a global terror that took humanity to the brink of extinction, this time it’s a far more local affair with an eruption at Mount Rainier that left isolated residents of a nearby planned eco-community perfect prey for a pack of hulking, large-footed and very hungry menaces.

I definitely applaud Brooks’ for stepping away from zombies and trying something new, especially after the immense success that they have given him. Not only does he attempt to craft a realistic horror scenario through a completely different creature, but he tries to accomplish this in a vastly different setting scaled back from worldwide pandemic to just one single community.

Unfortunately, I think that this more intimate setting ultimately ended up being too constraining. The story, mainly told through the journal of a member of the Bigfoot-besieged community, wasn’t able to become much more beyond a fairly standard survival-horror tale of a community under strain from an outside threat, complete with several common tropes and easily identifiable twists in the plot.

Brooks does an admirable job of transforming the Sasquatch. Out of all the cryptids and nonexistent creatures out there, I think this is one that I have always taken the least serious of all (the fact that it is commonly called "Bigfoot" plays a very heavy role in there). However, through the various interviews and readings that make up this book, the existence of wild ape-people is definitely made more realistically plausible than I have seen anywhere else. And not only are these the most feasible Sasquatches, but they are also more genuinely threatening and anxiety-inducing than I have encountered in any other book, TV show or film.

“Devolution” is not the second “World War Z” that I confess I hoped it would be. But for its limits and cliches, I still overall enjoyed Books’ latest tale.

What a wild ride. Slow to get moving, but then it settled into a good pace and I was devouring chapters at a time and staying up well past my "bed time".

If you've read World War Z, you're familiar with the POV style that Devolution is written in. It can take a little bit to get used to, but seems like a good format for this type of story.

Overall, very positive feelings about this book and would definitely recommend to any fans of Max Brooks. Strong recommendation even to anyone that hasn't read Brooks before.

An Advanced Reader’s copy has been provided to me by NetGalley in exchange for an honest review

Release Date: May 12, 2020

Rating: 3.5 out of 5

The Plot: A tale of survival as the community of Greenloop finds itself stranded after a volcanic eruption. The biggest worry may be creatures of legends and myths told in interviews and journals found in the aftermath of the massacre found.

Overview: I’m not going to lie I had really high expectations of this book as World War Z is one of my all time favorite books so when I got approved for this advanced copy I literally danced around my house for a few minutes. With that in mind, it wasn’t as good, but I did still find it enjoyable. I did not find the footnotes to be very user friendly on my kindle and I feel this would have been an easier read if I had a physical copy in front of me, I mention this specifically because it takes me out of the story which is never a good thing. The narrator wasn’t my favorite and I wish a different approach had been taken to her character and a more in depth approach to some of the other story lines. What I loved about World War Z was the way it was an oral/journalistic format and this just didn’t get there the same way. All the negatives out of the way I thought the plot was excellent and the realistic threat of Sasquatch was so well done. I like my Bigfoot terrifying and I am very thankful not to live in the woods right now or I would not have slept! Being that this leans toward horror I don’t want to give any more for spoiler purposes but I do recommend picking this up, though maybe after things after died down if you are the anxious type and current events have you panicked.

I also feel the need to mention this is one of the most hideous covers I’ve ever seen, I cannot express in words how much I loathe it and listen. I really enjoy a good Bigfoot story/conspiracy theory. What I do NOT enjoy, is an ugly red foot as a cover. That is all.

The story of a young couple is chronicled here through the wife's diary entries and interviews with park rangers and scientists. The small gated community in the shadow of Mount Rainier is perfectly in tune with the needs of its members and its natural surroundings. After a volcanic eruption, the cracks begin to appear - along with tracks of a very large bipedal creature. Footnotes at the end of each chapter satisfied my scientific need to know more without resorting to Googling in the middle of the night. Who could sleep with all that howling anyway?

Devolution is a book version of a faux documentary about a group of residents of an eco-friendly living community who encounters sasquatch after the eruption of Mt. Rainier. It does not go well! It's written in the same style as Brooks' previous novel World War Z.

I recommend this novel for those who enjoyed World War Z and for those who like creature horror. For me, it was entertaining, and I'm glad I read it, but I would have liked to see either more character development in the first half, or to get to the action more quickly.

Overall, It's a good, escapist read. I received an advance reader copy from Net Galley.

I received an advance copy of this book through NetGalley. It releases May 12, 2020.

Max Brooks, author of World War Z, returns with another harrowing account of disaster. This time out it's much smaller scale than World War Z, focusing on a single isolated "experimental community" called Greenloop in the wilds near Mt. Rainier. The story is told through the journal entries of a resident in the community and interviews with various experts.

In brief, Mt. Rainier erupts, resulting in Greenloop's communication and road back to civilization being completely cut off. As the community comes together to deal with the problem of how to survive with supplies on hand until help arrives, another one starts to reveal itself. A sasquatch tribe, on the move after the eruption, happens upon Greenloop and may consider it a source of food. From there, the story turns to residents slowly coming to terms with what they're dealing with, and what they can do about it.

The characters are varied, though some are archetypal and lack depth. Part of the issue is that this is not a long book, so there wasn't a lot of room to go into depth. There are passages included that provide some interesting background on a couple of the characters which start to give them some life. Overall, I was left wanting to know more about them, if only so that I could care about them.

Everybody does get a "shining moment" or two, which helps. Two characters in particular undergo an interesting transformation throughout the story, but that mostly happens off-screen. I would have liked to know more about their experience, but I suppose there is something to be said for letting one's imagination fill-in the blanks.

I will say, reading this in the opening months of the COVID-19, it provided some pretty handy survival and preparedness tips. Overall, while it doesn't reach the heights of World War Z (though, really, that's a tough act to follow), it is definitely worth a read.

At first, I thought that this book was supposed to extol the virtues of an inclusive, progressive group of people. A lesbian couple with an adopted Muslim girl named Palomino? Too woke for me! But lo and behold, when nature shows them her dark side, maybe they’d been better off with at least one redneck survivalist among them. The dynamics between the characters are fascinating. How the leaders in times of peace are not so effective when conflict arises. When animal lovers who refuse to kill even rats end up underestimating nature, red in tooth and claw made me think (I don’t even kill bugs but, would I be willing to hurt a mountain lion to defend my loved ones?) The creatures in question are bigfoot (bigfeet?) but the story could apply to anyone from the Donner Party to Millennials running out of toilet paper. The first chapters confused me, as they had too much detail about these characters’ experiences (which could not be more foreign to me), but when the trouble starts, I couldn’t stop reading. I expected to root for Bigfoot and was surprised when I sided with the humans. Good job, Max Brooks, making me care about characters that I would normally dislike.
I chose to read this book and all opinions in this review are my own and completely unbiased. Thank you, NetGalley/ Random House Publishing Group - Ballantine!

This is told as an after-action investigation using the journal of a resident, interviews with a forest ranger and other pertinent media interviews. In the not too distant future Mt. Ranier erupts, leaving a small eco-community called Greenloop cut off from everything. The eruption has destroyed nature's balance and sent animals fleeing from the devastation, and from the predators that were also displaced and are now ranging in to new hunting territories. The small group of citizens of Greenloop slowly come to terms with the fact that the predators are Sasquatches.
This started off pretty slow for me. There was a lot of groundwork being laid and I was not a fan of the narrator of the journal. She was too whiny and I had a hard time liking her. It is a journal written to her therapist as a form of therapy, so I guess that is to be expected, though. Once the Sasquatches showed up it was hard to put down. It was intriguing seeing the different pieces come together and how the characters developed, although some of the characters were a bit too one dimensional. I really liked it, though, and will definitely order it for my library.

This book was fast paced and interesting. I enjoyed the structure of the book as I did with Brooks's previous work. The atmosphere and character building was really great. All in all a very good book, especially for those who love all things Sasquatch. Thank you to NetGalley and Del Ray Books for granting me early access to this book. I will be posting this review today to my Bookstagram and companion Facebook page, @thatreadingrealtor.

3.5. At first I wasn’t sure how many stars to give this one. The beginning was a bit slow for me, as well as getting into the grove of reading journal entry chapters, as this was my first Max Brooks novel to read. However, the story does build at an appropriate pace the characters build at an appropriate pace. When getting to know the main character I was very much not wanting to get to know her any longer, but towards the end I was rooting for her and could feel how much she had changed. Overall the book closes strongly and left me really liking it. Very different from what’s on the shelves right now so it was good to mix it up.

Great concept, disappointing execution. While I didn't love World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War, I commend Brooks for daring to do something different within the horror genre through his oral history format, which helps set the book apart from the rest of the pack. He tries to do the same here with Sasquatch by weaving together journal entries and interviews for the story, but is less successful. Although the book features a very exciting climax and an interestingly open-ended finale, the characters are so thinly drawn that it is difficult to get invested in their fates; one in particular has traits so over the top that is almost laughable. It's a shame since Brooks is a talented writer and I really wanted to love this, yet struggled to stay engaged.

This was fine! I mean, it was no World War Z but not every book can be a masterpiece. But seriously, this was a perfectly good book that successfully distracted me from the doom facing the world for at least a little while. I just thought that it was a little insubstantial. In particular, Tony and Yvette could've been more interesting/fleshed out characters.

So amazing. This book does for Sasquatches what World War Z did for Zombies. It makes them more realistic, more of a threat, more interesting. The character development was very well done, making each of the various people come to life and have wonderful and interesting story arcs. The way it was written is mildly reminiscent of World War Z, although the story follows one group alone through their move to a remote housing development in the shadow of Mt. Rainier.
It was a very quick read but I found myself picking it back up after having set it down for a moment, so it was a page-turner for sure.
I would recommend this book to anyone looking for something engaging and fun!

This ebook was provided by NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.