Rating: ⭐️⭐️
The synopsis tells of this book tells of a story that is suspenseful and thrilling. The tags say it's more science fiction . In this case, I would've preferred it to be a thriller set in a dystopian world. So it's safe to say, that I was disappointed in this book.
The fact that I was expecting it to go a completely different route than it did, was the first thing that threw me off. The second was that it took FOREVER for anything to actually happen in this book, and when it happened it was nothing? Very lack-luster.
Almost all of this book is spent traveling across the country, no matter whose perspective you're in (I'll talk on those later). And we meet some people, have a few "interesting" encounters, but nothing major ever really happens. I was expecting more intrigue and thrill. Maybe getting found out and having to escape people who weren't Billie. Maybe Miles gets taken by someone and he has to escape and find Cole again. And maybe when Billie actually shows up, it can be more of a battle? More thrill and suspense, literally anything. I will take anything more than what we got in those like 5 pages.
The characters in this book were all irritating. I didn't like any of them. Cole was this overbearing, selfish mom who keeps her son safe for her own self interest. Miles is typical 12 year old boy and oof just doesn't have the common sense I feel like most people have at that age. And don't even get me started on Billie; she was the worst. I get she was supposed to be the villain, but her injury leaves her hurt and whining in her head. It's awful. She's very distasteful and not well written as being the villain who is present in the beginning of Cole & Miles' journey and a glimpse of her at the end, but like I mentioned it was so dull when she did show up. And the fact that all of them use these horrible pop culture references... oof not great and definitely the first thing that turned me away from the book. I get you are trying to make the characters relatable, but using pop culture in that way is not good writing in my opinion. It shows you don't know how to grow characters without that. I could be wrong, as this is the only work from this author that I've read. Nevertheless, I didn't enjoy the references interspersed within the book.
Overall, this was very disappointing. If you're looking for a different take on a dystopian, men-go-extinct pandemic, story I would recommend The End of Men by Christina Sweeney-Baird. It provides more of a science-fiction dystopian take and a more realistic pandemic like situation. I think because I read that book first, I wanted something different out of this that I just didn't get in any sense.