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A review by abartley73
In the After by Demitria Lunetta
5.0
Spoiler free!
I'm not sure why I had never heard of this book. I really try to stay active when it comes to goodreads and booktube. I'm always watching videos and reading reviews to see what books are out there, but I've never even heard this book mentioned. With that being said, I think this shows that people should read what interests them, and not necessarily what books are always being hyped up. I've read quite a few that were so hyped but were such a disappointment to me. Not necessarily because they were bad books, but mainly because it's just not something I'm interested in.
So the other day, I'm browsing through the library and come across this book. The synopsis sounded so interesting that I picked it up. Now I'm irritated that I didn't grab the second one along with it. I think this really shows what books are out there and what I'm missing out on.
It started out as a survival book, which I now realize is something that really interests me. We all joke around that we are ready for the apocalypse, but if put in that situation, would we really be as smart as someone like Amy? She's really has gotten survival down. Smart ways to avoid Them. How to scavenge without dying. Where to live. Basically just how to survive when there's no hope. She had no help and figured it out by herself, and I instantly loved her as a character.
She finds Baby pretty early on. I loved Baby's character instantly. I'm not fond of kids to be honest, but the author made Baby into this great survivor at such a young age. I instantly loved her as a character, as well.
I don't want to say too much about the plot because I want this to be spoiler free. I absolutely loved it. I didn't come across any boring parts, and I knew with this book, I couldn't sit down to read without reading 100+ pages at a time, which is a lot for me. The main complaint I have is that I wish the actual survival part had been a bigger part of the story. I can understand that 455 pages of pure survival could easily get boring and repetitive. I just kind of felt like she built this really interesting post apocalyptic world, and then didn't explore it much.
I struggled when it got to the part where she was telling the story through flashbacks. Once I got used to it, it didn't bother me. It just kind of came out of nowhere in the story and threw me off for a few chapters.
I also really hate cliffhangers. I'm never the type to read a series straight through. If I'm reading multiple books through the same world, I become bored pretty fast and I don't enjoy the book as much as I would have. But she ended it perfectly. While it is somewhat of a cliffhanger, it's not one of those ones where you don't know if someone is going to live or die. I haaaaate that with a passion! I plan on picking up the sequel pretty quickly, but I want to read a book or two in between before I start the next book.
Overall Rating: A solid 4.5 stars!
P.S. I didn't see the ending coming at all. I'm usually able to guess the majority of endings before I finish a book, but the author was amazing at completely blowing me away!
I'm not sure why I had never heard of this book. I really try to stay active when it comes to goodreads and booktube. I'm always watching videos and reading reviews to see what books are out there, but I've never even heard this book mentioned. With that being said, I think this shows that people should read what interests them, and not necessarily what books are always being hyped up. I've read quite a few that were so hyped but were such a disappointment to me. Not necessarily because they were bad books, but mainly because it's just not something I'm interested in.
So the other day, I'm browsing through the library and come across this book. The synopsis sounded so interesting that I picked it up. Now I'm irritated that I didn't grab the second one along with it. I think this really shows what books are out there and what I'm missing out on.
It started out as a survival book, which I now realize is something that really interests me. We all joke around that we are ready for the apocalypse, but if put in that situation, would we really be as smart as someone like Amy? She's really has gotten survival down. Smart ways to avoid Them. How to scavenge without dying. Where to live. Basically just how to survive when there's no hope. She had no help and figured it out by herself, and I instantly loved her as a character.
She finds Baby pretty early on. I loved Baby's character instantly. I'm not fond of kids to be honest, but the author made Baby into this great survivor at such a young age. I instantly loved her as a character, as well.
I don't want to say too much about the plot because I want this to be spoiler free. I absolutely loved it. I didn't come across any boring parts, and I knew with this book, I couldn't sit down to read without reading 100+ pages at a time, which is a lot for me. The main complaint I have is that I wish the actual survival part had been a bigger part of the story. I can understand that 455 pages of pure survival could easily get boring and repetitive. I just kind of felt like she built this really interesting post apocalyptic world, and then didn't explore it much.
I struggled when it got to the part where she was telling the story through flashbacks. Once I got used to it, it didn't bother me. It just kind of came out of nowhere in the story and threw me off for a few chapters.
I also really hate cliffhangers. I'm never the type to read a series straight through. If I'm reading multiple books through the same world, I become bored pretty fast and I don't enjoy the book as much as I would have. But she ended it perfectly. While it is somewhat of a cliffhanger, it's not one of those ones where you don't know if someone is going to live or die. I haaaaate that with a passion! I plan on picking up the sequel pretty quickly, but I want to read a book or two in between before I start the next book.
Overall Rating: A solid 4.5 stars!
P.S. I didn't see the ending coming at all. I'm usually able to guess the majority of endings before I finish a book, but the author was amazing at completely blowing me away!