Helpful Score: 1
A mediocre entry into the ever-expanding genre of post-apocalypse fiction. The first 150 pages or so read well and then the villain becomes so outlandishly and cartoonishly evil that the book just falls apart and is hard to take seriously, and the final reveal is just shockingly ridiculous. The flashbacks to the plague (helpfully labeled "Then") are better than the "Now" trek through Europe Zoe is on. The stakes, like much of the book, don't seem real or realistic. There's a lot of promise here writing-wise, but the plotting and character development needs definite work. Not planning on reading the next two books of this in-progress trilogy.
