Devolution

Honestly? I was really excited for this, but overall: MEH.This totally lacks texture and nuance. The characters are drawn as black & white, good and bad. The main narrator is unsure but on the side of Right Thinking; Mostar is Always Correct Despite the Doubts of the Feebleminded; The rest of the residents are at best moronically naive or at worst Selfish Narcissists. Oh, and there's an appreciable amount of fat shaming thrown in to paint one of the Willfully Blind residents as particularly gross and selfish.Perhaps worst of all, people don't act like normal humans. It doesn't make sense for Mostar to jump to all the conclusions she does (she's put in that role because she's the Always Right character.) Meanwhile, it also doesn't make sense for the rest of the residents to be as blithely unworried as they are (they're put in that role to demonstrate how Mostar is Always Right.)This is annoying on multiple levels. I love Max Brooks's other books. I can see lots of possibilities here and I did like the arcs of Unsure CPA Wife and Depressed Husband responding to a survival situation. Mostar's backstory is gestured at but never explored. There was no reason behind the perplexing actions of some key characters.I honestly thought there was going to be a surprise where the Evil Violent Ape-Creatures were going to be shown to have more nuanced motivations. But no, they're just Evil Violent Ape-Creatures and the whole point is to . . . I don't know? Demonstrate how sucky nature is? Make fun of people who venerate nature? Have an excuse for detailed battle descriptions? (Which I find incredibly boring, in contrast to the tongue-in-cheek but somehow compelling analyses in [b:The Zombie Survival Guide: Complete Protection from the Living Dead 535441 The Zombie Survival Guide Complete Protection from the Living Dead Max Brooks https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1320562270l/535441.SX50.jpg 818].)On average, it's OK. Judy Greer's narration of the audiobook and the inclusion of other great voices were a saving grace. But don't go into this expecting [b:World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War 8908 World War Z An Oral History of the Zombie War Max Brooks https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1528312647l/8908.SX50.jpg 817]. This is better than the movie adaptation of that book, but nowhere near as good as the book itself.

I had received a free audiobook for review from LibroFM.
tldr
Great audio. really slow build, final chapters it really gets good. then it's over. more questions

Greenloop. A self-sustaining town located near Mt Rainier Washington. Off-grid living at it's finest.
We receive an account of this entire story through the journal entries of Kate, who seems to have been tasked the journaling from a therapist or a doctor. Her first hand account puts us in the (at some times scatterbrained) mind of a city girl getting her first hand experience at country living.

The first half of the book is mostly about learning about the town and the various side characters within it and i felt that it wasn't really necessary to go into that much length about the way the houses are wired or her husband becoming a handyman. It all felt a bit slow to start and we haven't even gotten into any accounts of the Sasquatch yet. So for the opening and the middle i was a bit bored.

Then the final third to a quarter of the book has the pieces that I've been waiting for, the confrontation, the defense, the primal instincts and brutality is where it all picked up, then then it was all over and more questions opened up.
What was with that shut-in family? and that weird old lady? Is it truly over?
These questions were asked in the epilogue by one of the voices we learn has ties to main characters, which I thought was pretty cool.

I really loved World War Z when I read it years ago because the journalist account of a fictional global crisis was such a neat idea and really well executed.

This follow up book is much smaller scale about one incident to one small group of people, but still tries to tell the story in a similar way with having a few different experts and related characters interviewed as well as the majority of the story being told in journal entries of a single character who was present for the events. It mostly just feels like a standard first person narrative though with this journal conceit clumsily fit over top of it.

The story itself is fine, some of it is thrilling and there are ideas here and there that piqued my interest, but it honestly took way longer than I expected to get rolling (the first third to half of the book is just setting up the community location and it's cast of characters) and it wasn't particularly interesting or unique.

Giving this a two because I wouldn't recommend it. Read World War Z instead.

This was my first Max Brooks and I was really drawn to Sasquatch x epistolary style storytelling. While reading I even found an article about his inspiration for Devolution.

Brooks gives us a cast of affluent liberals who have always relied on technology while choosing to live in an isolated area with no knowledge of how to survive there without access to the internet. Maybe it's their exuberant wealth, but I did not really have much compassion for these characters. Even after various attacks from a SASQUATCH troop they seemed so disconnected from their reality. I wanted to love this so much but it just ended up feeling so flat to me. I wanted to be a lot more afraid.

I really enjoyed the way the author presents the great apes and sprinkles in various facts about different great apes. That information really helped me believe in the setting and the Sasquatch. That was a great touch that helped suck me in to the story. I loved the character of Mostar and how she was able to use her past experiences to guide them. The additions of the interviews were interesting, but I'm not sure it was vital. The beginning was slow, but the ending picked up. There was more gore than I expected, but it didn't make me stop reading. The ending interview was important to the story, so I really liked that one. Overall, it was a good read.

Cranked through the audiobook on sick time today. Usually quite a fan of Max Brooks. His style on these kinds of stories is fun and interesting, and this one is no exception. The audiobook production and cast is exceptional — Nathan Fillion? Kai Rhisdahl? And the heavy lifting done by Judy Greer? Crazy good. But the real issue for me is that I just don't find the subject of his horror this time around threatening at all. It was so hard trying to put myself in a place to be emotionally moved by the terror that by the time I figured I could get myself into the space the book was asking of me, it was already over.

Rating: 4.6 leaves out of 5Characters: 4.5/5 Cover: 4.5/5Story: 5/5Writing: 5/5Horror: 3.75/5Genre: Horror/Fantasy/ScifiType: AudiobookWorth?: Yes!Hated Disliked Meh It Was Okay Liked LovedIf you would have told me I would love a Big Foot horror story I would have thought you were crazy but wow this book. The audiobook felt kind of like a podcast. Then there is Kate who I started out hating and ended up loving. The whole book was a ride! I kind of wish there was a book two but the way it ended was perfect!