Maxine Unleashes Doomsday

★ ★ ★ ★ 1/2 (rounded up)
This originally appeared at The Irresponsible Reader, where the The Irresponsible Readerauthor also participated in a Q&A with me.
—

“You know the trick to surviving? The one thing you got to do?”

“What's that?” Maxine asked.

“You got to treat every day like an adventure. Like it's fun, or a challenge, even when everything's crappy. Especially when it's crappy. Because otherwise, it's all going to crush you.”

“I feel like I spent my whole life being crushed.”

“Well, that's your fault. A normal job, trying to live a normal life, it's just inviting people to stomp you. And they do.”

“Yeah.”

“But at least in my line of work, sometimes you get to stomp back...”

Maxine Unleashes Doomsday

Main Bad Guy

savoir faire

and

“Someday I want to go to California,” Michelle told Maxine. “Did you know it used to be a state?”

This far north, the concept of local government grew teeth and claws. If you stuck to the highway, you would cross into territory controlled largely by the New York Giants, which had expanded beyond its origin as one of the nation's most consistently mediocre sports teams to control a big swath of towns northeast of Buffalo.

Mad Max

The Warriors

Disclaimer: I was provided a copy of this novel by the author in exchange for this post and my honest opinion. My opinions are my own, and weren't influenced by this.