Poorly written and not romantic, but entertaining

These books are 100% plot, mostly related to battles of increasing scale, with extremely light romantic subplot. They have an interesting and compelling story that kept me reading through all 8 books (1 - 7 plus the prequel), but they were somewhat poorly written.

I felt like I was a teenager reading Twilight again, with Edward's features constantly being referred to as cold and chiselled as though from marble, every other page. Every single time Hannah experienced anxiety, blood rushed in her ears, her vision would narrow, she'd look desperately around the room for something, anything, to count, and she'd slowly come back to herself. We'd get the same word-for-word schpiel every time. When characters experience pain, pain "exploded" in their ___. Why is the pain always exploding? Liam was always described as "ruggedly handsome". After reading the same description for the 100th time, you start to ask yourself whether an editor ever looked at it. Liam has striking gray blue eyes. I get it. We get it. We know. Yes, Milo loves peanut butter. Does he have ANY other traits? Do the people in this story know a single thing about this child other than a single food he likes to eat? Does he eat citrus and vegetables? Are you going to give this boy scurvy? Did you know that everyone loves classic rock? Do you? Do you? Do you wanna hear Black Bird again? Have we mentioned the song Black Bird by the Beatles?

Probably because so much of the material is re-explaining what happened in the prior books, and copying and pasting the exact same descriptions of pain, fear, anticipation, anxiety, and the major characters, this 8-book-long-series feels like it drags on and should have been abridged into one longer novel.

Throughout the first books, it also transformed from what appeared to be a slow-burn romance set during the apocalypse to a play-by-play military fiction with the slightest hint of romantic undertones. If you're reading it for the romance aspect, I wouldn't. It was weirdly sanitized and slightly religious, without any hints of anything remotely sexual, and without any swearing of any kind. One climactic moment is completely ruined by calling the evil-doer "jerkface" like it's some extremely insulting gotcha. I've read some criticisms that say, "You really think that a battle-hardened 30-something man would never say 'shit' or something similar?" I honestly find that more believable than the idea that a teenage girl with blue hair and piercings is going to unironically call someone a jerkface.

It's not all bad. Some characters had some interesting character development, like Noah. I loved the character of Quinn. Most people fail to write teenage girls with any sense of humanity, whereas Quinn was extremely interesting, complex, and subverted expectations. That said, other characters -notably, Liam and Hannah, the main protagonists - don't seem to grow all that much and were pretty one dimensional. I enjoyed the multiple perspectives, especially since it was some of the "minor" characters were the most interesting. I also enjoy it when they give perspectives of the "villains" of the story, though most of the villains were fairly one dimensional, pure-evil people. I noted that there were people of every background and nationality included in the story, without leaning into any tropes. They were just written like any people would be written. I like that approach, it makes for more believable people.

I read this in audiobook format and the narrator was great. One of my pet peeves with narration is when someone tries to transform their voice into another age, gender or regional accent that they can't accomplish, and it completely takes you out of the book. Think, a man suddenly reading in an extremely light and airy voice like he's trying to be a little girl, or a woman suddenly talking in an extremely low and gruff voice like she's trying to be a huge burly man. She changed her voice slightly to make it clear that it was a new character, and it was always clear that it was, but not in a way that took you out of the story. There's also quite a lot of shooting and carrying on, and she even made that interesting, reading out each "boom" "bang" and "pop" in a way that actually sounded pretty accurate and didn't make me physically cringe. I think the narrator saved the writing a lot of the time, honestly.

All in all, I read this series because my mom said they were her favourites and while I feel like I'll never get that time in my life back, I also can't give it less than 3 stars, because to sit through 8 books of anything says they must have been at least entertaining.

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Both writing and story are below average

Ok, I am seeing this book series get advertised everywhere. My wife and I listened to it on a trip and we found the writing style amateurish and the story predictable, boring and unbelievable all at the same time. You could have told this story in far fewer books. My recommendation is do yourself a favor and find something better.

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Enjoy the story with its vivid details

I enjoy this story with its vivid details and explanations of what the characters are seeing and feeling in this new scary world. Interesting storyline combined with a EMP event. Can’t wait till I read the rest.

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Very well written

Enjoyed the book’s immensely. Different take on an EMP disaster which was well done. Will move on to the next books.

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great book

great series. knew I would love it from the description. post apocalyptic, kidnapping escape in to a winter wilderness.

Kyla Stone writes to exactly what I want to read. Stacy Glembowski was a perfect narrator. she did a great job differentiating characters and giving them their own voices.

I will say at times I was a bit bored with Noah and Julian. I was more interested in Hannah's story. Quinn grew on me quite a bit though and I'm getting visions of what I hope will happen in future books.

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I couldn't stop listening!

this box set was hours of entertainment! I really enjoyed how each book explains the characters so well, and I was so invested by book 3...it was very hard to put down. I look forward to the next 3 books in the series.

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I’m impressed so far!..

I don’t read fiction very often. I prefer history or books I can learn from but I decided to give this “sponsored suggestion” from IG a shot & I gotta say, I’m hooked!
Kyla writes some of the most unimaginably evil people that I wouldn’t even begin to want to fathom.. What happened to you Kyla?! You ok?
I find myself caring about the characters. Putting myself in Noah’s shoes as a father wanting to protect his son.
I just bought books 4 & 5..

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Really good

Good story I want to hear more but sometimes I just want to say enough words get to the point!

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Supremely Disappointing

This was marketed as a trilogy and now after slogging through all 3 audiobooks, I discover there are 7 books in the series! The storyline has not accomplished anything meaningful through 3 books. It has become clear that the author is simply dragging this out to maximize the number of books. I’m done with it.

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shit

not hard to tell a woman wrote this, all women are heros all men are evil

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