I feel like I may have needed to read this book rather than listen to the audiobook, mainly to take pauses to ruminate on this post-apocalyptic landscape. I suppose I did not help myself by being impatient with the story unfolding that halfway through I played the audiobook at 1.25x speed to get through it quicker. Yes, this was due to me being annoyed at the way/pace information was being revealed as well as the narrator's somewhat slower reading pace.

All that said, the book was intriguing. Cal and Frida are a couple who strike out alone to the California woods after the world as gone to sh*t. But of course, they are not alone. I liked getting to know the characters and how they manage day to day to survival (and how would I? I enjoy post-apocalyptic books because I also think of where I might be - like our protagonists? Antagonists? Somewhere else?). As they navigate a little further from their normal bounds, the book gets much more interesting and yet I became frustrated with how the focus of the book came to be information withholding: the characters doing it to each other and to the readers. Some of the revelations were worth it, but doing it repeatedly dulled any shock value some may have had otherwise.

The end seemed to come with an unexciting sigh. Perhaps it was also a mistake to finish this book the morning after Donald Trump was elected president. I was already in a terrible mood and the book felt a little closer to true after thinking about the effects this presidency could have on our environment. And our President-elect's perception of gender equality plays in to it, as well. California is a grim setting for our future.

So, I might have liked this a lot more if I had read it's print form and if I hadn't been such a grump about the election. I'd like to say I'll revisit it under better circumstances, but it's probably not going to happen.