Quirky Cat
Pocket Apocalypse is the fourth novel in Seanan McGuire's amazing InCryptid series (I feel confident in saying that, at this point!). I still hate myself for being so far behind in this series, but I'm catching up quickly.
Alex Price is a cryptozoologist, but even he has lines he'd rather not cross. Killing innocent cryptids, for example. Or flying halfway across the world to deal with a werewolf problem. Yeah, that's high up on the list of things he doesn't want to do.
Sadly, he doesn't have much of a choice here, as his girlfriend Shelby has asked him to go with her to Australia in order to help save her family from that fuzzy and fanged threat. Naturally, that means the situation is going to get more complicated (and dangerous) before things are said and done.
“Adversity doesn’t exist to make us stronger. Adversity exists because this world is a damn hard place to live. Prove that you’re better than the things it throws at you. Live.”
Pocket Apocalypse was every bit the novel I was hoping that it would be, and then some! It was fast-paced, thrilling, and had some of the most threatening scenes to date (impressive, when you think about the snake cults all over the place!).
This is the first novel set outside of North America, and that made for an even bigger difference than I expected. That being said, I absolutely loved it. Seanan McGuire brought in a lot of real-life debates and concerns about conservation in Australia, and it added so many layers to this story.
As did the inclusion of werewolves, obviously. McGuire put her own spin on the mix, allowing for plenty of room for surprise over these three hundred odd pages.
“Logic and loss aren’t always great friends. Sometimes we mourn for the things that hurt us. Sometimes, that’s okay.”
Like the rest of the series, Pocket Apocalypse did have its funny moments, but honestly? More often than not this felt like a more serious version of the same series. The stakes were high, and the tensions were higher, thanks to the whole Alex meeting his girlfriend's family element.
There's also one scene that I did find to be highly upsetting. I know the book is on the older side (published in 2015), but I'm going to avoid going into too much detail here, for sake of spoilers. If you know me though, you can probably make a solid guess.
Overall, I really enjoyed Pocket Apocalypse, and am actually a little bit sad that this is the last full novel (so far) with Alex's perspective. I haven't taken a look at the short stories, so I have hope that this won't be the last we see from him. In the meantime, it's time for me to hop into Chaos Choreography!
Check out more reviews over at Quirky Cat's Fat Stacks
