AFTER THE ENDING by Lindsey Fairleigh & Lindsey Pogue

Hey there, Blog Buds!  Remember a while back I reviewed World War Z   and nagged you to get your flu shot?  Well, it's time for another nagging.
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I joined Goddess Fish Promotions   a while back too and signed up to host a Virtual Book Tour for an intriguing post-apocalyptic New Adult novel called INTO THE FIRE.  Well, it didn't require I review the book, but I was so intrigued that I really want to and so I hustled over NetGalley and delightedly found it.  Then, I discovered it was a Book Two in a series.  Being an old reviewer, I suspected the authors would be totally cool with me requesting Book One and reviewing it too.  And so I did and they did and here we are.
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Dani and Zoe are best friends and college students.  Their 'voices' are in First Person and well-crafted and believable.  First Person Point of View is very hard to pull off.  I know.  I keep trying.  And I'm still too embarrassed to show the results to the world.  Anyway, Dani and Zoe are college students and expertly portrayed in the age group with the typical college lifeness.  Having emerged from the protective cocoon of high school (for teens that phrase makes no sense) in which clean laundry and food magically appeared, they have little patience with their classmates who haven't.  Perfectly understandable.  After all, they work their butts off to earn the money to pay their bills.  They wash their own clothes and do their own grocery shopping.  They're adults, New Adults, but adults just the same.
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The Flu has been going through their college and its town, but no biggee, right?  It's just the Flu.  But, then, one by one, people they know and then people they love start dropping and dying from it.  Huh?  But, like I side, even though they're adults, they're 'New' at it and the harsh reality of life and death hasn't quite registered yet.  Like most twentysomthings, they're immortal.  Nevertheless, they adjust to reality quickly.  Badly shaken by the death of friends and a boyfriend, they get sick too, but they recover because they have some immunity left over from a mild case a while back.
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And they've got a big brother, Jason, who is a Green Beret with the United States Army.  Hellyah!
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Actually, he's Zoe's big brother, but he quickly becomes everybody's big brother, rounding up the survivors and organizing a Bug-Out to Colorado.  Dani's sweet him and he did go out of his way to come get her.
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Throughout these early chapters, the Point of View switches back and forth between Zoe and Dani, but it's not difficult to keep up 'cause they're Texting.  But, you know that's gotta end because the grid will come down sooner or later with no healthy, living people to keep it out.  Communications are gonna go out and then what?  This is a generation used to and utterly dependent on instant communication across thousands of miles.  They totally take it for granted.  I remember one guy just before Hurricane Sandy slammed into New Jersey said he was ready because his freezer was full of pizzas and his cell phone was all charged up.  Uh.  Yeah.
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One thing I really like about this book often goes untouched in post-apocalyptic novels written by guys.  And that is the presence of females.  And romance.  Guys are so focused on survival that they totally forget their reason for living in the first place.  So, I'll get one of those books and I'll ask the guy, "Um, so, in your next book your characters are going to run into some pretty girls, fall in love, and have lots of babies then, right?"  And they're like, "Uh, no."  And so then I'm like, "Okay, so your characters survive the end of the world, but humanity dies out a few years later anyway because they never had nookie again.  No females, no nookie, no babies, no more human beings...ever...again."  And they're like  "Uuuuhhh..."  Insert finger into nose.
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Anyway, not to worry about that in this story.  It's not a romance novel, but it does have believable romantic elements so you know humanity isn't going to die out. 
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Okay, the group bugs out, but the best friends are still hundreds of miles apart.  Someone manages to bring and keep a laptop going and so they email.  Different members of their two groups need to check on families as they make their way to a safe zone in Colorado.  Along the way, they see lots of dead people and also some live people who've gone crazy, though no one says the Z Word.  Also along the way, relationships are sorted out as each finds their place in the group.  Dani feels useless in a group of military commando types.  And Zoe's having telepathic, empathic impressions of others, not to mention nightmares of kissing her dead boyfriend while he's dead.  Eeeeww!
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But, that's not the only weird thing.  The military folks are remembering things from before the bug-out, how their bases were on lock-down so brutal that soldiers were shot if they tried to leave.  And, sure, the apocalypse has gone down and the girls haven't worn make-up in weeks, but interpersonal dynamics continue.  Like I said, sooner or later love will find a way.  And remember what I said about the crazy people, also known as the Crazies?  Well, there's some crazy jealousies and rivalries breaking out.  Is it just normal breakdowns or is something more sinister at work?  A room full of dead dudes in military fatigues and riddled with bullets and stacked up like cord wood puts it over the edge, methinks.
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I like post-apocalyptic fiction.  It's interesting to speculate how humans would go on After the Ending.  Each story has its strengths and weaknesses.  One I read recently was very good on the world-building and techno-babbles stuff and they even had females, but the author approached it with humans handling things in only one way - military-style.  In the end, I thought it was just too controversial.  I love our military, but humans come in all sizes, shapes, and sensibilities.  Each of us would find our own way and the point us humanity would go on.  In any case, I believe this book's strength lies in the interpersonal relationships of the main characters and their crew, learning who they can rely on and figuring out what to do together. 
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Tomorrow, I will be hosting the Virtual Book Tour right here, so please stop in and comment so you can win a prize.  And the next day I'll post my review of the next book after this one, Into the Fire.  In the meantime, do swing by and get your Flu Shot, 'kay?
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Told you I was gonna nag.
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http://www.theendingseries.com/