It's a story about two families during an apocalypse. You won't learn what exactly is happening, but I didn't mind that, it's not the main focus of the book. I liked the atmosphere and suspense of it, and the way different characters reacted differently to unknown (and unimaginable) situation was also interesting.

There are two main reasons why I rate the book only three stars. The first is the writing style. Or maybe just the way the author portrays the characters. From the beginning he shows them to be shallow and vain, too focused on what people think about them. He shows them caring about status and money and wanting to have nice material things. He shows them wanting an illusion of living in a big, expensive house with a big, expensive pool and a big, expensive hot tub. The problem is he wants you to judge them for it. He wants you to point your finger and laugh, to feel better about yourself because you are obviously better than them. Ahem, everyone is, to some extent, vain and shallow. Different people love different things, people who love books are not better than people who love movies who are not better than people who love video games. I'm pretty judgmental person myself and there was a time in my life when I did exactly that: pointed my finger, laughed and felt better about myself. I hate that now and actively stop myself from doing that. I'm not going to play the author's game. The only really bad thing about the main couple is their racism (and yes, I'm happy to judge them for it), but their only other flaw is that they are boring. So what.

That being said, I didn't care about them at all. I didn't care whether they live or die or get sick or get mad, it'd left absolutely no impact on my emotions. I'm a character-driven reader, I don't have to like them but I should care about them. Sadly, in this book I couldn't be bothered.

I also didn't like the way the author described the children. It felt weak and didn't make much sense to be honest.

But my second main complain about the book is the author's obsession with sex. What the actual f*ck (no pun intended). He made everything about sex. And I mean absolutely everything, even the fact that one of the characters had a contractor for building the house. Or the act of inflating a float. Or any other absolutely mundane thing. Dude, seriously, get help.