DoodlePanda's Reviews > The First Days

DNF at 50%

I tried with this book. I really did...
This book kept showing up on my recommended list, and the blurb sounded good. A zombie story with two women kicking ass? Sounds great, right?
Unfortunately, for me, the story just didn't follow up on the promise.

I think it was a combination of several things that didn't work for me.
Mainly it was the way the author describes... well everything. A lot of it seems like it doesn't have any place in the story. Like it's been put in as a page filler. Over time this really started to bug me. And some of the descriptions were just... weird.

The other thing that bugged me was the conversations. They sounded fake to me. And the descriptions of feelings were over the top.

In addition to this there were some things that just didn't make sense to me personally. Like the way Katie and Travis reacted to each other (I'm not going to go into detail as there might be minor spoilers involved). I felt the way Jenni reacted to Travis strange too. (view spoiler)[ Her entire family turned into zombies and tried to eat her the day before and she takes one look at Travis and turns into some fangirling teenager? Just seems strange to me. (hide spoiler)]

There were other things too, but I'm sure I've gone on enough! I got halfway through the book, I really liked the first chapter and I kept hoping it would get better again. Then today when I started the audio I accidentally skipped a chapter. It took me a few minutes to realize why it suddenly seemed like I had missed something. Then, after I understood what had happened, I actually considered not jumping back to see what I missed, as the book would be finished quicker. That's when I realized that I was not enjoying it at all, and that I have so many other books I could be enjoying instead!

The narrator was.. ok. She did an ok job with what she had to work with I think. The only thing I didn't like was how she did the voices. Or rather didn't do the voices. She seemed to have one female and one male voice. No accents or anything to keep the voices apart. Which got a little confusing now and again. But all in all it was ok.

This book seems to have a lot of positive reviews, so if you have read the blurb and think you're going to love it then I think you should give it a go. I honestly think the underlying story is ok, it just really needs some good editing...