The Survivors

"Murder in the caves, boring lead"

"While I can’t find a connection like Jane Harpers other books I was definitely pleased with this one. I had many ideas of the ending and who the murder was but I definitely wasn’t prepared for the actual truth. "

"The book wasn’t bad but lacked much drama or intensity. I didn’t see the ending coming but it was rather anticlimactic "

"Best book I’ve read so far this year. Loved it! "

"You can also find my review here:<br/> https://ohnobooks.wordpress.com/2022/05/13/the-survivors-by-t-c-weber-arc-review/<br/><br/>The book follows Lucy, a mother, as she tries to keep her children safe in a world where everything is cruel and violent. The story is set in an apocalyptic world, long after humanity as we now know it has failed and disappeared due to climate change. The idea of this novella is really interesting, so when the author offered me an opportunity to read his book, I was more than happy to do so.<br/><br/>The book is very fast-paced and makes you want to know what happens next, therefore I found myself keep turning the pages and ended up reading the book in the span of two days, but I would have read it in one sitting if I could. Everything in this book is really messed up, but at the same time, it’s believable and quite sad because of the cruelty of humans and the path that we are currently on climate-wise.<br/><br/>I loved the symbolism in the book too, although I have to admit that I had to do some research for some of the things just so I can fully understand their significance, which is not a huge problem since it made me learn something new, but it did take some extra time and I was still a little confused at the end.<br/><br/>Although the story was on the shorter side, it didn’t feel rushed at all, which is a common problem that I keep running into when reading shorter books, but in this one the story was nice and round.<br/><br/>I also liked the writing style, because it didn’t tell the story, but rather showed it, so I got to know the setting, time, and characters as Lucy showed it to the reader. My favourite character was obviously Lucy, I think she is very strong and even in a violent world such as this she tried to stay on the right path and didn’t loose her humanity, which cannot be said about the other characters. They were really bad people (with a few exceptions) and I kind of rooted for them to fail and for Lucy to get away. That’s the other thing about the story, you really root for Lucy and her kids, you want them to succeed in their goal and survive whatever horrors this cruel world throws at them, and believe me it throws stuff at them a lot. Whenever I thought I saw it all and it couldn’t possibly get any worse for them, it did, and oh boy I was not prepared. There were multiple moments while I was reading that my mouth flew open in disbelief, which is a good thing, I love books that chew you up and got you just staring blankly at the page unable to process what the hell just happened.<br/><br/>What I didn’t particularly like in the book and the reason why I gave it 4 stars is because of the ending. This was the part I mentioned before, that I had to do some research to try and make some sense of what happened and what the meaning was. While I liked the way the book ended, I think the way that led to that was really random and didn’t make as much sense, but again maybe it was just a me problem and other readers would make more sense of it with the proper knowledge, but even though I ended up rating it 4 stars I think it’s a good book, and I will definitely visit the author’s other works.<br/><br/>Overall I liked the book and would recommend it to anyone who is okay with books on the messed up side and aren’t too squeamish of course, since the book does involve plenty of violence and brutality which might repel some readers, but as always: make sure to read the trigger warnings and decide based on that. All I can say is that if you read disturbing books for example "Gone to See the River Man" and you are open to books with that level of disturbance, then I think you should definitely give this one a try as well.<br/><br/>Thank you to the author for providing me an ARC in exchange for an honest review!"

"Slow burn, mystery, classic who-done-it"

"Her books just keep getting better. Loved the setting of this one. "

"This book really transported me to the small town and kept me guessing and the ending was one I didn’t expect!"