You have Ben who is a convenience store owner in Durango, Colorado and his son Joel who is just going on summer break before his senior year. They are on a backpacking trip when the electromagnetic detonations fry all electronics and they head home. They pack up an old Bronco that has no electronics and plan to head for the east coast to find his two younger children who are living with his divorced wife. Fair enough up to this point and potentially interesting. And I liked the narrator.

But everything got ridiculous from here on. Minor spoilers may follow: One day after the blast, the town of Durango is empty except for several looters. Really? Durango, a town with a population of 19,000 is completely abandoned one day later. Except for two looters who are caricatures of a recent “gang element with tattoos” moving into pristine Durango. Does Ben, a store owner who should know most of the town try to find or visit anyone? Friends, neighbors? No. Does Joel want to check on his high school friends, lacrosse teammates, anyone? Yes, one cute girl he just talked to for the first time the day school ended. No one else.

Ben and Joel find Allie who is primarily in the book to be a damsel in distress. “Thank you for saving me?” “I didn’t know what I would do?” “Oh, I love your dog.”

Every time Ben talks about his wife he is disparaging for no apparent reason. How dare she move out of Durango. But Ben apparently has no connection to anyone there either as he leaves without checking on anyone.

There is lots of talk about looters at the various towns they go to on their cross country trip. But no self awareness that they are looting the gas at these stations every time they help themselves to fill up. And in one case they help themselves to a bag of dog food left on a store floor. They either see no one in the towns they drive through or they find a plethora of looters, thieves, kidnappers and murderers. This is within one week of the blast and it is not sufficiently explained where everyone else went. The author seemingly had his preferred plot and instead of making it plausible he just wrote vignettes of conflict.

It was frustrating because it could have potentially been so much better!!