Chaos

This story can get a bit too detailed at times, especially while describing specific assault tactics or building layout. This first book only covers a few days of time. So far, I'm enjoying how the author has made the disease more believable than many previous authors have done. It will be interesting to see if it is still believable as the story unfolds and the initial infection fades into the past. There are maybe a dozen instances where the author could have used a good editor to correct grammar, spelling, and sentences that made no sense.

This is a book I would not have read had it not been written by a local author (zombie tales just aren't my thing), so I can not be trusted to write a meaningful review. But I will say this. It is very much fun and a little unnerving to read a zombie apocalypse that takes place literally so close to home. The main character drives past my grocery story, and I am pretty sure I know right where he lives. As for the writing. ... Well, I wish he O'Brien had had a merciless editor to whip the manuscript into shape. Some of the sentences made me want to cry. This is something one expects from self-published books, unfortunately. On the one hand, several times I thought, “OK, I'm done. I'll stop reading now and move on to something else.” But I never stopped. I read through to the end and was glad I had done so. The story is exciting and, considering the action apart from the sentence structures, is well written. It was compelling enough to keep me reading. In real life, I would have no desire to make the protagonist's acquaintance outside an emergency situation, but in the book I cared about him and those whom he loves, so I give the author that praise.

I decided to read this one to give myself a break from high investment reads. I hoped that this would be a good in flight type of book like the famous Reacher novels. Sadly, O'Brien does not even come close. The writing is too simplistic for a post apocalyptic scenario. Everyone seems to take everything in their stride and killing people is like taking out the garbage. To top it all of all the teens in the book also seem to have the “My neighbor is a Zombie” syndrome. On top of that if you use half a page to talk about opening a door, I am not sure I can keep on reading for too long. In the end the only reason I finished is that it was mercifully short!. No more of this franchise for me.