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Very disappointing.

The writing is simply bad. Grant wanted to play with the sexual tension between the main characters (adopted bro and sis) and failed to walk the line. The result is not smart but discordant. Not to mention that Sean's character is pretty wooden/tropey in general (tbf, part of the blame here lies with the audiobook narrator, who gave him a grade school bully sneer). The plot twist was ‘foreshadowed' with floodlights and a marching band. Many turns of phrase were used repeatedly and boringly. The politics and message of the book never rose above CNN level ‘analysis'—seriously, the book takes national politics at face value. It's difficult to think of something which would make me take you less seriously except, well, the main message of the book, which is that Truth exists out there as something journalists can go and discover when no one else (even those being paid to secure a hazard zone 20 years into an apocalypse) can. Not to mention that the action scenes are pretty weak. There are no hordes, there's no looting/survival, there's maybe 2 hand to hand encounters with zeds, and no cool weapons. I mean come on, she introduced fire trucks with flamethrower/pesticide hoses and we didn't get to see them used??

Also sad that Berkeley cameo'd as its least inspired and most obvious form, replete with villainous Repubs. We are NOT more paranoid than Nowhere, NV, and we have way less guns. The highways are already clogged to hell as it is. The bay area would be toast.

I finished the book because I need to get rolling on my goal, but perhaps that was the wrong move.