This is hands down one of the worst books I have ever read. I had high hopes for it, since I’ve never read a modern urban fantasy book before, and I like apocalyptic, dystopian and fantasy novels a lot. I also thought an author of over 200 books would be able to write a pretty compelling thriller. I now know that someone who writes an average of just over 5 books per year probably churns out a lot of books with very little value just to have them published. I should have known an author of mainly romance novels shouldn’t be trusted to write a post apocalyptic thriller (that’s not to say romance authors can’t branch out to other genres or, especially not to say that women can’t write post apocalyptic stories, but instead highlights Robert’s inexperience with the genre).

The story started out interestingly enough, but looking back, it was basically a cut and paste intro to to a novel that begins with a pandemic. After the pandemic, or the Doom, as the characters baffingly refer to it as, claims the lives of a good size of the world's population, the tension slams the foot on the breaks as the plot becomes paintstakingly boring. In fact, I've never read such a boring post-apocalyptic novel, or maybe even a boring book in general. That is not to say that there weren't *some* thrilling parts, but those were too rare and were too quickly wrapped up. It mostly felt like I was reading a soap opera set after an apocalypse, which, given Roberts' experience writing (probably) cheesy romance novels makes sense.

I did not care about the safety of any of the characters, not even the one who becomes pregnant. Not a single one of them were interesting interesting enough to warrant me pme having feelings of concern for them. They were too bland, one dimensional, and like the rest of the book, boring. None of the characters went through any meaningful character development.pplot n

When the novel finally revealed the villains, which only came half way through the book, they were so comically evil. Their reasons for wanting to murder the main characters were so minimal that they added nothing to the plot, save to cause tension in two parts of the story. One of their said reasons was literally "because I can!" This tension, too, was too shortlived to be exciting. Even if those parts of the book had been longer, I fear that they, too , would have been bored me to tears like the rest of the book.

There is something to be said for subverting the "rules" of a genre, which Roberts seemed to try to do by creating a system of magic. But even this was not fully fleshed out or thought of. , so there were no rules to be broken. The magical characters seemed to have no limit to their power, especially the evil characters. They wielded any powers that the characters needed too depending on the plot. without any foreshadowing or explanation. Oh, there's a lock on a door that the characters need to open? Guess what: magical characters can pick locks now! Oh, some of the characters need to hide from a group of bad guys in a forest? Oh, Good news! They can disguise themselves as trees *and* have super sensitive hearing so they can spot the m coming from a mile awayoming from two miles away! There were apparently different races of the magical characters too, but like the rest of the magical system, this wasn't explained. ed (and yes, they clearly had different powers, but the distinction between them wasn't defined at all). The characters simply created names for each one on the fly (faeries, witches, elves, whatever else you can think of; I'm surprised the bad guys weren't referred to as "warlocks" or something) .

Roberts seemed to "try" to follow the rules of post-apocalyptic nstories (againbut failed. Again, it's great when authors break these rules, but when they do so, it's supposed to be interesting. Here, it was clear that Roberts simply did not understand the unspoken rules the genre. All of the characters were trusting of one another, which I guess makes sense since there was no betrayal. At one point, the one of the groups of main characters shows up to a village (with the other gr that has no leaders, but somehow was already populated by 200 people, as well as the other group of main characters, . Did I mention that the firstis group of main characters numbered 97 strong? That surprise was foisted on readers too; the last time we saw these characters, the hero of the story ahhad just killed his comically evil brother and was now on the run. That group e group currently had about 6 people, but a time skip happened and then they showed up to the village with people in all kinds of roles that the village needed. There wSocieties as large as 200 people should have collapsed before it even got close to that number, and that would even be with a strong leader character. Characters in these types of storiePredictably enough, this village was home to a group of bigots who hated magical people. Why did it take months for them to start murdering the magical folk which would have caused the collapse? As I said, the characters were too trusting and had noapparently had no vetting process to for screening assholes from joining their settlement, which, again, predictably lead to the downd, in part, to the downfall of the vicommunity.

Speaking of "predictably," mostevery single plot twists could be seen from a mile away. None of them surprised me, and I pwas able to predict them several chapters ahead of them actually happening. Societal collapses and other plot twists are supposed to serve as plot devices to move the characters along , but it's hard to be investe id in a story where every plot twist is boring and almost adds nothing to the plot.

To wrap things up, I don't know how this book has so many good reviews. Perhaps they are from fans of Roberts' romance novels who generally steer clear of her work in other genres. I will never know if those novels are good because I will never read another of Roberts' books again. I wish I could get back the hours I spent on Year One.

Year One - Likewise Book Reviews

42 Reviews