youraveragedave's review against another edition
adventurous
informative
mysterious
sad
tense
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.75
Part found footage, part documentary. A well researched and pretty neat story about the eruption of Mt Rainier and Sasquatches! But these aren't nice Harry and the Henderson hominids, they're displaced from their homeland and hungry!
Loved the WWZ documentary style of the experts and scientists and radio interviews. The diary entries that make up the found footage aspect are also pretty good, I just didn't care for any of the protagonists. As Brooks says in the text, these people moved to the woods and expected the wilderness to adapt to them, instead of them adapting to the wilderness.
Audiobook performance by full cast was a great way to read this book.
Loved the WWZ documentary style of the experts and scientists and radio interviews. The diary entries that make up the found footage aspect are also pretty good, I just didn't care for any of the protagonists. As Brooks says in the text, these people moved to the woods and expected the wilderness to adapt to them, instead of them adapting to the wilderness.
Audiobook performance by full cast was a great way to read this book.
bookishkash's review against another edition
3.0
3.5
Never read a Sasquatch book before so this was definitely interesting! It was a slow start but once it built up, it kept me on the edge of my seat.
Unique writing style with story told through journal entries and interviews. This book was graphic, scary, but a good time.
Never read a Sasquatch book before so this was definitely interesting! It was a slow start but once it built up, it kept me on the edge of my seat.
Unique writing style with story told through journal entries and interviews. This book was graphic, scary, but a good time.
onmalsshelf's review against another edition
dark
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.75
chromeorange's review against another edition
2.0
Devolution a.k.a. How Someone of Average Intelligence Tried to Stop a Bunch of Idiots From Getting Themselves Killed.
Like most others, I read this book because I loved World War Z. This book is nowhere near as good, though, to the point where I wonder if Max isn't a good enough writer to have consistent characters in a story. His strength is "making ridiculous things believable," but it sort of ends there. Now that he writes a book with an ongoing characters, story, and tension, he seems very...meh.
My biggest issue with this book, and this is a bit specific to me because it's a pet peeve, is how incredibly dumb these characters are. Max falls into the disaster-story stereotype of thinking that, when people get put into a survival situation, they can't handle it. He thinks people panic, deliberately put their heads in the sand and ignore the situation, or engage in petty in-fighting - and they do this FOR A LONG TIME, regardless of any amount of evidence - which makes them all look like complete morons.
Regardless of every other inclination, humans have a strong sense of self-preservation. Instead of ignoring the situation, I feel confident that a bunch of people cut-off from the world would be wracking their brains full-time to try and get out or survive. And they would come up with good ideas. I mean, what else could they do? They have nothing else to do for 18 hours a day but think, plan, prepare. Things would get done. Creative ideas would be the norm. Spelling "HELP" in rocks would be a day 1 thing. Erecting a defensive barrier would be not long after any danger. And then you have food rationing, weapons, scouting, watch rotations, hacking electronics, etc. Max treats these things as genius-level, that only some big-brain with experience in intense survival situations would think to do. It's frustrating to read about full-grown adults flopping around like ignorant and petulant children for most of the book, and, frankly, it's insulting.
Then you have everything else. What is the point Max is trying to make with this book? It seems like he's making some statement on how dumb it is for hippies to worship nature, but it doesn't really hit because the scenario is so ridiculous. It's like he's saying "Everyone thinks nature is their friend, but it's not! Look what happened to these losers! A volcano exploded and sasquatches attacked! See what I mean? They died!" Maybe he intentionally made them idiots because that's how he sees fringe environmentalists?
I will say that Max did a decent job of convincing me this scenario could happen - or at least the "cut off from the world" part. I didn't see any glaring holes in his logic. Suspending my disbelief of sasquatch was...ehh. He did the best he could do.
There was a problem there, though. Max spent so much of the book trying to explain things via these interrupting side interviews, it really slowed things down and took me out of the story. The first half of the book basically STORY > EXPLAIN THE VILLAGE > STORY > EXPLAIN NATURE > STORY > EXPLAIN THE VILLAGE AGAIN > STORY > EXPLAIN THE ERUPTION > STORY > EXLPLAIN BIG FOOT > STORY > EXPLAIN BIG FOOT > STORY > EXPLAIN BIG FOOT....and on and on. Ugh.
Also, another pet peeve of mine is how boring the protagonist is. I still have no idea why she had a therapist. She seemed entirely bland and forgettable to me.
This has gotten a bit long, so I'll just sum it up. Nearly all the characters are idiots and I didn't care about them at all, the story is predictable and choppy, there's no real tension (because of the "found media format"), and the "strawmanning" with environmentalism is bad.
Like most others, I read this book because I loved World War Z. This book is nowhere near as good, though, to the point where I wonder if Max isn't a good enough writer to have consistent characters in a story. His strength is "making ridiculous things believable," but it sort of ends there. Now that he writes a book with an ongoing characters, story, and tension, he seems very...meh.
My biggest issue with this book, and this is a bit specific to me because it's a pet peeve, is how incredibly dumb these characters are. Max falls into the disaster-story stereotype of thinking that, when people get put into a survival situation, they can't handle it. He thinks people panic, deliberately put their heads in the sand and ignore the situation, or engage in petty in-fighting - and they do this FOR A LONG TIME, regardless of any amount of evidence - which makes them all look like complete morons.
Regardless of every other inclination, humans have a strong sense of self-preservation. Instead of ignoring the situation, I feel confident that a bunch of people cut-off from the world would be wracking their brains full-time to try and get out or survive. And they would come up with good ideas. I mean, what else could they do? They have nothing else to do for 18 hours a day but think, plan, prepare. Things would get done. Creative ideas would be the norm. Spelling "HELP" in rocks would be a day 1 thing. Erecting a defensive barrier would be not long after any danger. And then you have food rationing, weapons, scouting, watch rotations, hacking electronics, etc. Max treats these things as genius-level, that only some big-brain with experience in intense survival situations would think to do. It's frustrating to read about full-grown adults flopping around like ignorant and petulant children for most of the book, and, frankly, it's insulting.
Then you have everything else. What is the point Max is trying to make with this book? It seems like he's making some statement on how dumb it is for hippies to worship nature, but it doesn't really hit because the scenario is so ridiculous. It's like he's saying "Everyone thinks nature is their friend, but it's not! Look what happened to these losers! A volcano exploded and sasquatches attacked! See what I mean? They died!" Maybe he intentionally made them idiots because that's how he sees fringe environmentalists?
I will say that Max did a decent job of convincing me this scenario could happen - or at least the "cut off from the world" part. I didn't see any glaring holes in his logic. Suspending my disbelief of sasquatch was...ehh. He did the best he could do.
There was a problem there, though. Max spent so much of the book trying to explain things via these interrupting side interviews, it really slowed things down and took me out of the story. The first half of the book basically STORY > EXPLAIN THE VILLAGE > STORY > EXPLAIN NATURE > STORY > EXPLAIN THE VILLAGE AGAIN > STORY > EXPLAIN THE ERUPTION > STORY > EXLPLAIN BIG FOOT > STORY > EXPLAIN BIG FOOT > STORY > EXPLAIN BIG FOOT....and on and on. Ugh.
Also, another pet peeve of mine is how boring the protagonist is. I still have no idea why she had a therapist. She seemed entirely bland and forgettable to me.
This has gotten a bit long, so I'll just sum it up. Nearly all the characters are idiots and I didn't care about them at all, the story is predictable and choppy, there's no real tension (because of the "found media format"), and the "strawmanning" with environmentalism is bad.
acstephens3's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.5
sarahpuschel's review against another edition
4.0
“I think the human mind isn’t comfortable with mysteries. We’re always looking for answers to the unexplained. And if an answer can’t come from facts, we’ll try to cobble one together from old stories.”
This book was so brilliantly written. So believable that I had to remind myself throughout that I was reading fiction. The pacing was perfect and I was left with a perfect combination of wanting more, and being satisfied.
It was an interesting take on human nature and how we might react in isolation, when technology is stripped away, when the world around us is crumbling and we are forced to not just figure out how to survive, but face what that might look like within ourselves + those around us. What might happen when we are forced to acknowledge the existence of something we’ve been told is fictional our entire lives.
laviskrg's review against another edition
5.0
Max Brooks books are basically refreshing gems that come out rarely but are perfectly set when it comes to current time settings. Devolution is not better than World War Z, cos that level of perfection is rarely matched but it reads like a super satisfying B movie, part horror, part social commentary, where the weak (the hipsters, the vegans, the spiritual liars) get fucked and are ended by the nature they claim to worship and understand. This book raised my serotonin levels.
bibliomaniac33's review against another edition
adventurous
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
The opening chapters have characters that you may (just possibly if you are like me) find so grating, it is hard to make it though. But, knowing from the description what lies in wait makes it worth persevering to where the actions starts, and it does start pretty fast.
My favorite thought while reading Devolution was "if just ONE person had a rifle, this story would not exist." Comeuppance was another recurring idea........the devil very much is getting his due here for people who want to rely on everything except themselves. They are in their minds of course, too good for that. The skill of the author here is still managing to make some of these characters slightly sympathetic. There is a lot of present day societal flavor to unpack in a very action packed short book if you so chose, including, the emasculation of men, along with other things, and what happens when that drips into social hierarchies ..........but I will leave it at that to not bog down in politics and philosophy.
This was a Highly Satisfying book. Reminds me a lot of a Michael Crichton novel- I just loved everything about it. I am one of the few people on earth who has probably read this and not World War Z, so I will be checking that out next. And perhaps rereading Michael Crichton's Congo. It's been around 30 years since I read that and it was tickling the distant parts of my brain as I read this, so now Im curious to do a comparison.
I think this is one of the few books I've read this year that I plan on rereading. Five stars.
Update 2023 re-read- Still five stars and even like it better the second time through.
My favorite thought while reading Devolution was "if just ONE person had a rifle, this story would not exist." Comeuppance was another recurring idea........the devil very much is getting his due here for people who want to rely on everything except themselves. They are in their minds of course, too good for that. The skill of the author here is still managing to make some of these characters slightly sympathetic. There is a lot of present day societal flavor to unpack in a very action packed short book if you so chose, including, the emasculation of men, along with other things, and what happens when that drips into social hierarchies ..........but I will leave it at that to not bog down in politics and philosophy.
This was a Highly Satisfying book. Reminds me a lot of a Michael Crichton novel- I just loved everything about it. I am one of the few people on earth who has probably read this and not World War Z, so I will be checking that out next. And perhaps rereading Michael Crichton's Congo. It's been around 30 years since I read that and it was tickling the distant parts of my brain as I read this, so now Im curious to do a comparison.
I think this is one of the few books I've read this year that I plan on rereading. Five stars.
Update 2023 re-read- Still five stars and even like it better the second time through.