I really started out struggling with this book. It was written in journal form with interviews scattered throughout and in the beginning it was character building and showing the lay of the land. The problem is not only was it somewhat boring but the characters had no redeeming qualities. Not a single one. The narrator (journal writer), Kate, was probably one of the worst. I really struggled to pick up the book everyday. Only seeing great reviews on the book kept me going. About a quarter of the way through, the book picks up. A couple of the characters are starting to grow on me so I hang on. By halfway through the book, it suddenly takes off. I could hardly put the book down. It was one terrifying thing after the other. I found myself rooting for most of the characters, especially Kate, which I thought would be impossible. This book really turned itself around. Definitely worth the wait.

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With Devolution, Max Brooks tries to replicate the formula for World War Z but the result is not nearly as successful. Virtually nothing happens for almost half of the book. And when the action finally does starts to pick up, it's just a very generic and straight-forward residents-of-a-remote-community-band-together-to-fight-bigfoot plot. If you've ever read a book featuring a monster stalking humans, then you can predict exactly what's going to happen before it happens.

The book is written mostly in the form of journal entries penned by Kate, the book's protagonist, with fake interviews and essays interspersed throughout. The fake interviews and essays, supposedly given and written by experts with knowledge of bigfoot, add nothing to the story and feel like mostly filler. The book would have been a lot shorter without them and I started skipping over these about half way through.

To be fair, I did finish the book in 2 days and it was entertaining enough. Just nothing special especially compared to what the author was able to achieve with World War Z.

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