After the End (After the End, #1)

by Amy Plum

I have to fault the description for completely concealing the fact that AFTER THE END has a second protagonist (Miles) and that it it written in dual POV (one chapter from Juneau's POV, then one chapter from Miles' POV). I think most of the problems I had with the book stem from the opening. The whole story hinges on Juneau's desperate quest to find her clan. The problem is that we barely see any of these people prior to their abduction, and therefore don't share Juneau's connection. I couldn't tell you who any of her friends were after a clunky first chapter. Mile's opening is worse, however, since his entire motivation for finding Juneau and traveling with her is so flimsy as to be pointless. On top of that, he's eighteen, but the way he interacts with his father you'd think he was fifteen.

So yeah, I had to order my brain to ignore all of that in order to finish the book. The basic story is intriguing. I did like The Village type premise, and watching Juneau acclimate to the modern world was interesting and felt mostly authentic. I also found the mystery and magic of Juneau's clan to be compelling despite the deliberately vague explanations (it looks like the big answers will come in the next book).

And yes, there's a romance. No, it's not very good, and yes, it's rushed. Fortunately Juneau and Miles don't decide they love each other within days of meeting, but the total lack of chemistry was disappointing. I did appreciate the switch on normal character roles. In most books, Miles would have been the survivalist leader and Juneau would have been the somewhat prissy naive one. The mixup kept the story from being too predictable.

Overall, I liked the premise and some of the intriguing story twists enough to fairly enjoy the book. The beginning is by far the weakest part of the book, and the romance is pretty anemic. But I may still look at the second book when it releases.