Stars: 3 out of 5.
Reading zombie books is my guilty pleasure, and I realize that there is only so much you can do with the genre before you run out of fresh ideas and start repeating common tropes, even inadvertently.
How We End surprised me in the beginning with how different it was from other zombie books: people cooperated and helped each other when faced with the horrors of zombie apocalypse, instead of being complete arsholes, as they are usually depicted in other books. In a way, this was a story of found family and overcoming hardships together more than a zombie survival book. Seven strangers are thrown together during the first outbreak in London, and they decide to stick together and try to survive this nightmare. It was refreshing to see this aspect of humanity brought to the forefront, rather than the cruelty, looting, and killing that are usually prevalent in zombie books.
The characters are also pretty interesting, though only two of them, Liv and Jake, get any sort of development or story arc. The rest are more there for support and to add necessary survival skills to the group. Like how convenient that the American couple stranded with them are a cop and a restaurant owner who can cook pretty much anything and knows how to forage? And for some reason knows exactly what kind of edible wild plants and mushrooms are available in the UK, even though he is from Louisiana and was a tourist in London?
And here we come to the crux of my issue with this book – everything is a bit too convenient. Need a car? Fareena knows how to hotwire them! Need a houseboat to use the canals? Fareena’s aunt used to live in one, so she knows how to navigate them! Need to stock up on food for the winter? Rob can forage! And cook! And pickle! And smoke meat! Need a water filtration system? Another member of the group used to be a cosplayer who loved to tinker with stuff… don’t ask me how that translates into knowing how to make filtration systems. Oh, and Jake was a doomsday prepper with a stocked pantry and a bugout bag ready to go!
There is never a struggle or mad dash for survival, unless it’s needed by the story to fridge a character. And even then, some characters survive against impossible odds when others just get offed seemingly immediately. How was Frances okay after an infected clawed all over her face and scalp? I distinctly remember the author mentioning blood and wounds… yet this is never mentioned again once they get on the boat. Jake has traumatic bruising on his arm… which is conveniently glossed over and never talked about again. More importantly, it never impedes him from doing anything.
And the action comes to a grinding halt in the last quarter of the book, once they all get to Jake’s parents, and what we get is a long group therapy session with absolutely nothing else happening. Then the author remembered that this was actually a zombie book and decided to end it with a bang… so they go on a hospital raid… for no reason. Yes, they would eventually need meds, but going into ground zero for infection half-cocked with people they had never worked with before is the epitome of stupid. Not to mention, the action sequences in the hospital dragged way too long.
By the time they reached Jake’s parents’ house and everything that happened there, I was rapidly losing interest in the story. The hospital raid didn’t really do anything to help with that. The book went from a solid 4 stars to about 2, so I rounded it up to 3 because the first half of the book had promise.
PS: I received an advanced copy of this book via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.