I found this story gripping, entertaining and thought provoking.
The author is a good storyteller and the plot kept me reading. The characters are interesting and likable, the world building fascinating
Recommended.
Many thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for this ARC, all opinions are mine

I thoroughly enjoyed this post-apocalyptic novel, and found the driving question worthy and well-explored. The ending didn't feel rushed or clunky as I feared it might; on the contrary, it answered questions (and posed new ones as any good ending should), and I finished it feeling satisfied. The characters were great and I really enjoyed getting to know each of them. The way the novel was broken up into parts, and then chapters, and then points of view, and then numbered sections within those, made it easy to read and kept the tension/interest high.
It lost a star for me because I felt like the middle did drag on slightly, especially as the title gave away that the seven characters would eventually meet up. This didn't happen until near two-thirds of the way, so any attempt at creating suspense over a character's livelihood was ultimately derailed until then.
That said, it was still a great read and one I'd happily recommend to others looking for an interesting dystopian/post-apocalyptic read.

In the book The Apocalypse Seven, author Gene Doucette writes about seven strangers that wake up after a nights sleep to find everyone in the world is gone. Or are they? And how long have they been asleep? And how did the world get taken over by wild-life?
The was a good and creative story. The characters were well thought out and portrayed. But the end of the book felt rushed and I was left with a lot of questions. I would recommend this book. I received a copy of this book from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

You know that feeling when you're reading a really awesome book and you think "I could legit just keep reading this story forever"? That is me with Apocalypse Seven. Full stop, I did not want this story to end, yet at the same time I desperately craved all the answers! So I will try to break down what made this such a win for me!

-The characters were just so relatable. These folks are not the Katniss Everdeen of the apocalypse. They're all bumbling, fumbling, and completely the same as most of us would be in their shoes. They panic, they cry, they behave exactly as you'd expect everyday people to. And eventually, slowly, they start to get the hang of surviving, but they're not particularly tickled about it.

-The humor is so fun! Admittedly, a global apocalypse in which only seven people (as far as we know) have survived is... a downer. But the humor laced throughout this story was perfect. It was just the right amount of lightheartedness in between the rough stuff to make it so incredibly readable.

-There is a mystery- of the "what the heck happened here!?" variety. The characters are not only trying to survive. Once their basic needs are handled, they kind of want to know why the world ended, and why they, of all people, are the ones who survived. And I loved the way the mystery unfurled, giving us bits and pieces as the story went on- just enough to be satisfying without giving away too much.

-Mind. Blown. There were some incredible twists that just... well, like the heading suggests, blew my mind.

-Honestly it is just really enjoyable, entertaining, and well-paced. I had so much fun reading this book, and that's that.

Bottom Line: So entertaining and engaging, I simply could not put this one down!

A fun riff on a story I've seen before, if also running flat at times. I love an apocalypse story, particularly a "where'd everyone go" kind of tale -- and this was a just-fine summer diversion.

Seven individuals in the greater-Boston area wake up and find that everyone else has disappeared, and they are alone in a world of overgrown vegetation, robust wildlife, and extreme weather. They slowly find each other - by accident; by shortwave radio - as they try to hypothesize what has happened, and how to survive.

This was a really enjoyable read! Each of the seven characters is interesting, and seeing them find one another was really satisfying. My personal favorite was Win, world class archer and all around badass, with her horse Elton. I found the end satisfying - I appreciated that there was an actual, concrete explanation.

The Apocalypse Seven is a DNF for me. I made it through about seven percent of the book before I stopped. There were essentially two reasons:

The first was the version I received was formatted horribly. Random words with a mixture of upper and lowercase letters, spacing issues between paragraphs (sometimes no spacing at all, sometimes too much), Chapters starting midway down a page, the list goes on. I recognize this isn’t the fault of the author and it isn’t fair to them to have the book rated down if the publisher sent out a badly formatted text. It’s on the publisher to provide a readable text to for reviewers to read.

So I tried to continue on even with the formatting errors but I just really couldn’t get into the story. By the time I stopped reading I’d been introduced to three characters all of whom wake up one morning to discover the world had changed. There was nobody around (except these three in close proximity), the grass and bushes and trees have grown wildly, and basically it seems like the end of the world came and forgot these three. But their reaction is just like, “huh…this is weird…let’s go find some lunch.” Their reaction to their predicament was just completely not believable. Add to that the dialogue was weak and nothing really grabbed my attention.

Rated 3.5 really.

First off...DISCLAIMER: I requested this title on NetGalley. Thanks to John Joseph Adams/Mariner Books/Houghton Mifflin Harcourt for providing a temporary ecopy. This didn't influence my review in any way.

A TWISTED TALE

First off, this is one of those books that grow on you the second time you read them (well, it did for me 😉), though I ultimately decided to stand by my original rating because I tend to love character-driven books more, and despite there being a number of them, I didn't feel like this was the case - but such reread will impact my review nonetheless. There's no denying that, despite lacking the extra oomph for me, TAS is well written, nicely plotted, able to revitalise the age-old post-apocalyptic scenario, and it's got a unique, unexpected twist that pays off (I mean the ultimate twist, because there's more than one) and that fans of Doctor Who, especially of the Matt Smith era, will eat up (I'm first and foremost a David Tennant devotee, but let's get real - not only Matt's Doctor was fantastic, but had hands down the best, if often craziest, stories). Sometimes I like my books better the second time around because I know where they're heading, which may not be true for most readers; but in cases like this, the anticipation of what one knows is going to happen (or to have happened...) makes the story more exciting...for people like me at least.

ATTACHMENT ISSUES

The Apocalypse Seven are a varied bunch on various levels: different ethnicities and ways of life of course, but other kinds of diversity as well (notably, there's a blind character and a neuroatypical one, plus another character who's revealed to be queer at the end of the story). Most of them come with specific abilities (mind you, abilities, NOT superpowers) that are very useful in their predicament, and if that feels a bit convenient, it's also a way for the story to progress, so I'm not complaining. Moreover, a few of those abilities are paired with the characters you'd least expect to have them, which is a refreshing angle. On the other hand, despite the author's best efforts, it takes more than quirkiness on the characters' part to get attached to them, and diversity alone doesn't do the trick when it mostly remains on the surface - which is why TAS lacks the extra layer that only a strong connection with its protagonists could have generated.

FUNNY SIDE UP

What sets TAS apart from most post-apocalyptic scenarios is the fact that the characters wake up in a dilapidated - and apparently deserted - world with no clue why, and WHEN, it happened. Last time they checked, everything was perfectly normal. The reason behind their predicament ultimately turns out to be both tropey and unexpected, mainly because of how it's played out. I have to admit there's a cheesy edge in that respect, but upon rereading, I realised that it fits in with the humorous tone that the story manages to retain amidst the challenges our heroes face and their attempts to make sense of what befell them - not to mention the shocking denouement (and this kind of approach, if you're tired of post-apocalyptic stories full of doom and gloom, mostly works). So, all in all, TAS is definitely recommended for everyone who likes sci-fi and/or end-of-the-world narratives with a twist (or two, or three) and a pinch of humour, and doesn't necessarily need to fall in love with their (still solid) characters.

I absolutely LOVED this book! Excellent writing and characters. The mystery of solving just what the hell happened to the billions of humans who were no longer on a dying planet was so fun! When we did finally figure out what was going on, it seemed a natural discovery. This was a feel-good read with some religion, philosophy, astronomy, physics, and biology thrown in for good measure.

If you are going into this book expecting horror or despair (it is an apocalypse after all), you should know that it's just barely there.

Grab a beer and chips, or a brownie and tea, and dig in!

This book was an addicting read from first sentence onwards. The isolated and anxious atmosphere was done so well from the get-go. The characters, as well, were interesting and and multi-dimensional, even from first impression. The author writes science fiction deftly, betraying an expertise and familiarity in the science fiction genre. This was, overall, a great read that I enjoyed thoroughly.

An intriguing and unique apocalyptic mystery with some surprising sci-fi mixed in.

SYNOPSIS
Seven very different individuals wake up one morning and find they’ve seemingly slept through the apocalypse. They slowly find each other, and once they figure out how to survive, they take on the mystery of what happened to their planet and why they were spared.

THOUGHTS
I was SO pleasantly surprised by this book. I’m a huge lover of apocalypse stories, and this delivered that plus some surprising twists. In the apocalypse fiction checklist there is descriptive atmosphere, eeriness, and a large array of characters with diverse reactions. My favorite aspect had to be the unique mystery behind what exactly caused this apocalypse and why. The characters were fun and even amusing and when the science fiction aspect comes into play (which may throw some readers off, but I loved it!) it made for a smart but heart aching conclusion.

Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt/Mariner Books on May 25, 2021

The Apocalypse Seven is a light, moderately clever take on post-apocalypse fiction combined with a mystery. The story imagines that seven characters wake up and notice an accumulation of strange things as they go about their business. At first, they notice the absence of traffic sounds. When they go outside, they notice the absence of other people. And then they notice that things have changed. There are deer roaming in the city. Grass hasn’t been mowed; lawns have gone wild. Electricity isn’t working. Batteries are dead. An occasional building has disappeared or been replaced with a different building. Toward evening, they notice the wolves, which turn out to be coyotes bred with dogs. And eventually they notice that the weather is strange.

As the title implies, the seven characters eventually come together. Five of them wake up in Boston or Cambridge. One is a woman in the nearby countryside whose horse has disappeared. The seventh is a preacher in New Hampshire. One of the women who work up near Harvard is blind; her dog is gone. The fact that they all find each other so easily is difficult to believe, but the reader will need to suspend belief repeatedly to enjoy the novel.

Given the evident changes in their environment, it will be obvious to the reader that some time passed while the characters were sleeping. It takes the characters a surprisingly long time to work that out. It also takes surprisingly long before they realize that they each have a different understanding of what year it was when they went to sleep. The characters are more focused on speculating about the reason everyone else has disappeared — they decide to call it the whateverpocalypse — and wondering whether they should be searching for other survivors.

Much of the novel is spent exploring each character’s reaction to the need for immediate survival. A 14-year-old girl contributes her lock picking skills. A woman from MIT is good with stars and calculating the passage of time. The preacher is good with a gun and the horse woman — who finds and tames a wild horse — is good with a bow. The blind woman is good at taming wolves. The other two guys aren’t terribly useful but they supply manual labor and moral support. Working together and helping each other, they manage to survive some mildly harrowing experiences. At some point a new kid makes a brief and babbling appearance, but he doesn’t last long.

The mystery, of course, is the cause of the whateverpocalypse. Contributing to the mystery are some sparkling lights that appear at seemingly random intervals, sometimes taking vaguely humanoid shapes and other times just spinning around like disco balls. Then there’s a white tube with a cap sticking out of the ground, constructed of an unknown material, that seems to have some significance to the sparkling lights. Finally, there’s something like a ghost with body odor who occasionally appears and speaks to the characters, unless they are imagining him.

I won’t give away the answer to the mystery but I will say that Gene Doucette supplies one. It even makes some superficial sense if you don’t try to pick it apart. I’m not sure that everything in the story makes sense, nor am I sure that every event that deserves a credible explanation receives one, but the plot is really just a vehicle for the characters to interact with each other as the pursue their post-apocalyptic survival adventures.

The characters are all remarkably cooperative and relatively drama-free. That makes them likable, but it diminishes the story’s dramatic tension and makes the characters a bit dull. But the book is a light and easy read and the nature of the apocalypse and the sparkling lights and the malodorous apparition is all fun to ponder for as long as it takes to finish reading the novel. This isn’t the kind of book a reader is likely to think about after finishing it, but it makes a good beach read.

RECOMMENDED

College student Robbie wakes up on campus to find that he appears to have slept through the apocalypse. All the vegetation has overgrown and oversized wild animals now roam the streets. The weather changes at the drop of a hat and everything seems slightly off … even the stars. Gradually he’s able to find six other survivors and they band together to try and puzzle out what happened to the rest of humanity.

The Apocalypse Seven by Gene Doucette presents a humorous spin on the post-apocalypse with a likeable, eclectic cast of characters. I may be biased here, but I adore the gamer character who compared everything to a video game quest the most.

However, I do feel like the story’s execution is lacking in parts.

1) I feel like the amount of POVs is unnecessary for the length of the novel and the rapid switches between characters felt jarring at times.

2) The ending feels incredibly rushed to me. There is a huge plot twist revealed around the 70% mark that opens up a whole can of worms. However, I feel like the story needed more time to adequately address certain extremely technical and spoilery plot revelations.

Pacing issues aside though, The Apocalypse Seven is an enjoyable romp and a refreshing change of pace from your typical grim take on the post-apocalypse.

A very interesting premise that I was immediately hooked by. Doucette's strength is how he meticulously builds his post-apocalyptic world, as well as writing a very compelling cast of characters. Watching the plot unfolds was a delight. A quick read, that doesn't waste the readers time.

What would you do if you woke up after a night of partying to an abandoned college campus, vacant city, and possibly uninhabited planet? That’s Robbie’s situation in the opening pages of The Apocalypse 7, an intriguing sci-fi page turner by Gene Doucette with ARC courtesy of NetGalley.

Robbie has barely begun his freshman year at Harvard, and now his world is turned upside down. Is this a joke? Where has everyone gone? Did they leave or die? Is he the sole survivor of whatever happened? Robbie goes searching for someone, anyone else as he tries desperately to figure out how to survive. Will he find others? So many questions to be answered with few clues as to what exactly occurred.

I love a good apocalyptic read and I absolutely devoured this book as it consistently kept me on the edge of my seat. It alternated among different perspectives on the situation and it was interesting to see how varying approaches to survival panned out. I have to say it did give me pause to consider my odds in this type of setting based on my life experience and skills and most of current society’s dependence on power generation. Decidedly, there were things I may not have considered or deemed important in today’s city life that came into play, and that added a bit of personal tension and intrigue to the story.

I wholeheartedly recommend this read if you are a fan of apocalyptic and/or science fiction or just love a good page turner with some mysteries to solve. It’s well written, fast paced, and hard to put down!

I read a lot of apocalyptic themed books and the blurb for this book sounded really good. The book is a quick read and it wasn’t easy to guess they reason for the apocalypse but the characters and the why kind of fell flat for me. It didn’t have any build up and I wasn’t on the edge of my seat waiting for the big climactic ending.

4 / 5 ✪

https://arefugefromlife.wordpress.com/2021/05/25/the-apocalypse-seven-by-gene-doucette-review/

When the world ended, it wasn’t with a bang. It was with more of a… blah.

Thus passes the Whateverpocalypse—the end of the human race, where cities fall to ruin and the entire planet becomes overgrown. There seem to be no survivors, except those few that overslept the end of the world, awakening only after everything had already ended.

Carol and Robbie are students at Harvard—both freshmen, they awaken to find their dorms deserted and Cambridge around them in ruin. While Carol had spent her last night in, Robbie had gone out drinking. Neither remembered the world ending, but Robbie didn’t even recall stumbling home. And while disoriented, he’s barely in the dark at all compared to Carol—as she’s blind and all.

The two soon run across Touré—a twenty-something coder, and the only person excited by the prospect the end of the world presents. With him in tow, the group soon adds Bethany, a teen with a mysterious past and a helpful skillset (all of which suggesting a record). As they explore the ruins of Cambridge, the group soon discovers that the end of humanity is only the beginning of their poor luck. There’s also the lack of power, the packs of violent boars choking downtown, the freakish weather (including hailstorms, tornadoes, snowstorms and heat waves all in the same week), not to mention the horse-sized wolves.

Elsewhere, the world is little better. Paul is a non-denominational preacher living in backwater Vermont. He awakens to the apocalypse on Monday but it takes the man til Sunday to notice anything wrong. Once he does, he discovers a voice on the radio—the last sign of human life he’s seen. Soon he sets off for Boston, eager to meet Ananda, a former MIT adjunct, who remains picking through the ruins of her former campus for clues. Also there’s Win—an olympic hopeful stranded in the countryside. All leads eventually point to Boston, where the Apocalypse Seven might eventually meet, if they can survive the Whateverpocalypse long enough to find one another.

And even then, it’ll take all their combined effort to not only discover what ended the world, but to survive what comes next.

I do love a good apocalypse now and then. This one does it all without any undead, too, which is impressive. I was getting major Last of Us vibes from this—not so much the story, but the world. Those stolen moments between the cutscenes where nothing’s actively trying to kill you. The decaying, overgrown cities. The wildlife just milling about. The quiet. For the most part, this was a quiet apocalypse. One that provided a good premise, and then just let the story unfurl until The 7 (my shorthand for the survivors) finished filling it in. I can’t say enough about how much I loved the story. It combines a physical sense of loss and deterioration with the struggles of its survivors. Carol is missing her seeing-eye dog. Everyone’s lost family. Some are away from home. None are in their comfort zone. Mental breakdowns co-mingle with physical hardships. Loss with hope. The mystery of what’s befallen the world brings them all together, focuses them on something other than just trying to survive (well, except maybe Touré). And throughout it all there’s an undercurrent of lively—sometimes silly, sometimes dark, always entertaining—humor. Lots of jokes seemingly off the cuff. In conversation. During emergencies. At the literal end of the world. It all goes together exceptionally well—which I loved.

Despite this being the end of the world, it never seems all that hard to survive. I mean, there IS everything that’s trying to kill The 7 all the time, but otherwise. They’re helpfully stocked with Noot Bars—your lembas from LotR, grot from the Faithful and the Fallen, and a number of other things from other places. Noot is basically an foodstuff that never goes bad, has all the nutrients a body needs to live, and leaves something to be desired in the taste-department. So… basically an MRE. And since the young’uns are all stocked up, they’re not likely to starve to death. Win and Paul can hunt, but this is mostly glossed over shortly upon being introduced. Ananda’s nutrition is barely even addressed. I honestly would’ve expected a lot more survival from this story, but there’s comparatively little. It’s a tale more about the mystery, the strange happenings, and the atmosphere.

And the end of the world atmosphere is strong. It kept reminding me of the Last of Us or the like: huge sprawling metropolises empty of people, overrun by animals, overgrown and haunting as hell—except with out all the zombies. No zombies. Just the end of the world, and whatever happened to cause it. I have to say, while I eventually called the ending, the big reveal was nowhere near done after one twist. There were a number of other details that made the whole thing worth it twice-over, even though I did pretty much guess the overarching mystery. And even if you wouldn’t read this for the mystery of what happened, it’s a well-written apocalypse tale with a tense, spooky atmosphere and wolves the size of horses—recommending it is pretty much a no-brainer.

I would recommend skipping the epilogue. While it may provide a little closure, for me it raised more questions than it answered. And as I assume this is a standalone—you don’t need that in an ending. Everything was all well and truly wrapt up before—don’t ruin it.

TL;DR

The Apocalypse Seven is a thoroughly enjoyable post-apocalyptic science fiction dystopian set in a world teeming with life. Just empty of humanity. No undead, no super mutants, no robotic overlords. Just an overgrown world with desensitized wildlife and wolves the size of compact cars. And the mystery of how it got that way. Only seven survived (The 7) and they alone set out to solve this new world or die trying. Possessive of a tense, haunting atmosphere; a strong and immersive mystery; an all-too human cast complete with both strengths and weaknesses; and another twist even when you assume all’s been said and done—the Apocalypse Seven presents an excellent post-apocalyptic scifi and executes it just as well. While there’s comparatively little survival in terms of the Pincher-Martin-level I expected, the mystery and tension carries the story more than well enough. There’s little to hate about this one, and a lot to love.

Great cover and blurb, but lacking execution.

It appears I'm the outlier here and I'm asking myself if I read the same book as everyone else, but my main problems were with the thinking and acting of the characters.

One (being me!) would think that instead of taking an almost leisurely stroll, after picking up a blind girl on the way and hearing wolves, you'd panic, run for cover, try to get a backpack, find water, food and some sort of weapon until you know what's going on. The characters already immediately assumed the power grid was down and nobody tried finding a cell phone or telephone. I mean those are young adults in the 21st century right? Nobody even tried to check if a key was left in the cars on the road. Instead they talk about how the car doesn't look "good enough". Seriously?!
"Ah we cannot cook anything (after checking a restaurant)...why don't you try and loot some houses, gas stations or whatever and try to find a lighter or cans or food left behind?
Let's just say I got EXTREMELY frustrated very quickly and didn't make it further than 20% before I gave up.
The ideas with nature taking over and oversized wolves were great, but boy did the writing, world building and characters not make sense at all.
If you like dystopian, by all means try it out, but if you're wanting some common sense and logic with it, better skip this one.

I really enjoyed reading this book. The characters were good, and so was the story. I thought the descriptions of the scenario the group found themselves in was very well done. I did actually work out what had happened, up to a point anyway. For me it was an entertaining book, and one that was good to read.

This science fiction story follows a group of seven people after they each wake up and find themselves the last people remaining on Earth. All of them went to sleep the day before and woke up like normal, except suddenly there are no other humans, the animals and vegetation have taken over the cities, and infrastructure like bridges and buildings have begun to collapse. Set mostly in Cambridge, Massachusetts, the seven people eventually must come together and work to not only survive but also find out what happened to them and the rest of humanity. Our cast of characters are: Touré, a twenty-something Cambridge coder; Robbie and Carol, two equally disoriented Harvard freshmen; Paul, a preacher as quick with a gun as a Bible verse; Win, a young professional with a horse; Bethany, a thirteen-year-old juvenile delinquent; and Ananda, an MIT astrophysics adjunct.

My favorite part of this story was the world building. Sure, we aren't on some sort of futuristic space ship, but there are enough strange things going on in this new Cambridge that the characters (and the reader) need to get a handle on. I really loved how, in the beginning, each of the characters would have multiple moments where they'd think about needing to get something or do something and then have the reality of how complex that is now going to be. At one point, they are looking for food and Touré makes a comment that it doesn't matter where they go for breakfast if all the restaurants are locked up and they'd have to break in anyway. I think Doucette uses these little inconveniences and parts of every day life that have been messed up by the apocalypse to his advantage. It was almost like the reader was going around and gathering all these small ways that life is so different now and then, after a while, there are so many little things that we start to get the bigger picture of what is going on in this new world. I also liked how many of the aspects of this new world are just different enough to be concerning. Like the animals are all the normal animals that someone would expect in that part of the country but they are acting just a little strange or are just a bit different than what the characters are used to. Again, it is more of the idea that all these little differences add up to a really good sense of something being wrong. The actual physical descriptions of the places were also really effective. Doucette would give just enough detail to ground the reader, but no so much that it got boring or took away from the tension of the immediate situation of trying to survive. Again, since the book is based in current day reality there isn't too much extra stuff to explain. We get settings like a farm house, a grocery store, a dorm room, a college lecture hall, a library, etc. Personally, I enjoy this sort of more 'realistic' sci-fi story where I can stay relatively grounded and see the fantastical elements to the story instead of being overwhelmed by everything being so futuristic or fantastical and not knowing exactly what to focus on.

I think the overall tone of the book was really well done and I found it a bit refreshing. This story had a sort of optimistic vibe to it where the characters worked together. I think a lot of these sort of survival stories (sci-fi or not) often have groups of people pitted against one another or double crossing each other for survival. That just wasn't the case in this story and I never really felt like it was even hinted at being an option. Maybe it is because there are so few of them that there just aren't enough people to make separate groups to fight but it was a nice change from the usual sort of survival stories that I've come across. This book reminded me of the movie The Day After Tomorrow because the main group of characters are younger (college aged), there is some weird weather stuff that happens, they're running around a city, and there's a focus on science and using that information to survive. Now, this book isn't nearly as severe weather-wise as that movie, but there were multiple times were I was reminded of that movie which I haven't seen in at least 10 years, if not more. Outside of a few tense moments, I found this book to have a pretty light tone. It have very 'back to nature' vibes since the animals had pretty much taken back over the land. There were some dangerous animals (boars and wolves, mostly), but most of the time there were mentions of squirrels or deer running around. It was oddly peaceful at the same times as being a bit unsettling thinking of how much had changed suddenly for these characters. But in general, I didn't find this to be a dark or depressing sci-fi story like some of the genre can swing toward.

As a character-driven reader, I was a bit torn on the characters in this book. On paper, they are pretty interesting and unique. They each brought something to the group and they were diverse enough in their backgrounds to help figure out the problems they faced. However, in the narrative, they just didn't really stand out from each other. The story is told in third person but there are just so many characters that we follow that I would have found it helpful if the different characters were a bit more distinct from one another. This did get a little better the further along in the story I got, maybe because I had just gotten used to the narrative style, but initially, I kept forgetting who we were following. The character's speaking styles weren't really that different from one another and if there were more than 2 people talking, I had a hard time keeping track of who was speaking. I also found the narrative sort of jumped around to the different characters within the same chapter a lot. Now since this was 3rd person POV and it wasn't super close to the characters, I didn't have that much of an issue and there were usually scene breaks when we would hop over to follow a new character. However, since I was having a somewhat difficult time distinguishing the characters' voices from one another, I wished there would have been a harder line (like a full new chapter) when we switched characters. There also wasn't a whole lot of room for significant character growth with following seven different characters and then dealing with the big questions and resolutions at the end of the book. One character - Robbie - did have a pretty good arc, but he ends up changing so rapidly in the last few chapters that I really wanted more of that development earlier.

The main part of the book that really didn't work for me is the pacing. We spend the first 75-80% of the book getting to know these characters and watching them survive their first few months in this new world. Then in the last little part of the book, it felt like we found out what probably happened to them, get confirmation that this theory is correct, get a plan together to solve the issue, have the plan put in motion, then we have an epilogue. I skipped over some plot points for spoiler reasons, but that's a lot to get through in only 20% of the book. As much as I enjoyed the characters, I really think we didn't need to have that much time spent with them gathering supplies and food. Especially when there wasn't that much action or really anything happening in the first 50%. Sure, they had some bad luck and had a few interesting situations arise, but nothing really substantial that felt threatening. The pace picks up a bit at the 50% mark where we get some information dropped in that sort of reframes what the reader thought was going on and hints at the larger situation of how they are all here in the first place. If the events in the last 20% were more developed and spread out a bit say from the 50% mark to the end, I think it would have been a lot more engaging of a story. I understand that they couldn't really focus on figuring out the larger picture until they had shelter and food lined up, but I think the two aspects of the story - the survival element and the question answering element - could have been more balanced. I think plot focused readers wouldn't enjoy this book as much due to this very slow build up to the main reveal. I also think squishing in all the events at the end lead to plot points being less developed than I think they needed to be.

I really liked the way the science was incorporated into the story. It was a big part of the group discovering what had really happened, but it was never presented in an overly scientific way. For example, we find out the approximate year by Ananda looking at where the stars are in the sky. She observes that they aren't where she would expect them to be and thus determines that the year is approximately X. I, as the reader, have no idea how that sort of math/science works or how exactly she was able to get to the answer she did, but I trust that she is correct because I know she is an astrophysicist so I can rely on her expertise. Now a reader who likes harder sci-fi with a lot of explanation might call this vague and hand-wavy but I really enjoyed how we get the information and then get on with the story.

Overall, this was a nice read - interesting premise, good world building, low interpersonal tension, and pretty seamless science integration. However, the pacing and character distinction really left a lot to be desired for me.


Thanks to NetGalley and Houghton Mifflin Harcourt for the ARC in exchange for review

Expected publication is May 25, 2021.