Maybe the author was saving the best for last because this book has all the action I was hoping for earlier in the series.
It was still unrealistically Hardy Boys in The Apocalypse but at least the characters had to face some adversity.
Good drama happens when characters are faced with a situation that changes them in some way. This doesn’t happen as Joel and his father were always in the wild, camping, fishing and shooting together. They were prepared for an emergency with MREs and water purification equipment. When the EMPs hit, the plan was to drive cross country and collect Joel’s two other children in Maryland.
They picked up one of Joel’s classmates, Ellie, who was trying to get to Pittsburgh to her father. Ellie became a good shot but other than that she had no big change except perhaps to trust the two men who rescued her from bad guys in the first book.
The trio ran into people along the way some good people who helped them and some bad who they shot. This was the least diverse post apocalypse story ever. Apparently only white people survived and only white people were either good or bad. Nobody was in the middle or doing anything nontraditional.
I hope if the author is still writing that they develop a broader world view.