Gene Doucette

I like a good end-of-the-world tale from time to time, and The Apocalypse Seven satisfied my craving for the most part. I liked learning all the individual personalities and watching this disparate group of characters come together. The compelling problem of survival in a world with no electricity where wolves actively hunt humans was dealt with realistically, too.

The biggest question in the book is what in the world happened, and even while I was enjoying the characters and watching their fight for survival, my mind was clicking away, trying to figure out what caused it all. And... therein lies a problem. I didn't buy the author's explanation for the cause of the whateverpocalypse; however, it wasn't enough to ruin the book for me. Gene Doucette's mind works in interesting ways, and I think I'll take a look to see what else he's written.… (mere)

4,25 stars

There are two possibilities: either I'm rating the books I'm reading way too high at the moment, or my book year just happened to get off to a really good start. Either way, I found this a very enjoyable read. And unexpectedly funny. I think it may have been a really good idea to listen to this in audiobook format, because I don't think my inner narrator would have done anywhere near as good a job as Steve Carlson in capturing the voices of all the characters.

As a story, this was a pretty light one, as YA books often tend to be. Often, I found myself thinking about what the current scene would have looked like in movie format, and the humor of the sixteen-year-old Annie Collins was right up my alley (so I'm juvenile, sue me). There might have been a slight Juno-effect in that Annie wasn't entirely believable as a sixteen-year-old, especially in relation to adults in the book. The again, this was a book about a spaceship landing in a small town in the United States, so I guess realism wasn't really the main goal of the story to begin with.… (mere)

This is one of those books that is good, but with a bit more... it could have been great. Too much of the book was about surviving, which is good, but the ending felt rather rushed.

As for the characters, Robbie, Carol, Toure, Bethany, and Kit made sense. But for Paul and Ananda seemed a bit too resourceful, able to rig up ways to make buildings have power and engines to work.

I also don't think a generator could be powered or that a buildings electrical will work, or any number of things that are dependent on technology.

I did like the wolves, however I'm disappointed about their part in this story. The added affect of global warming was handled well, and I liked that their was diversity, but the story was about surviving, and the only that mattered was the skills that a person brought along.

I think I'm mostly disappointed because this is a great story, combining elements of global warming, ethics, and common sense, and with a bit more editing, this would have been excellent read.… (mere)