The End of the World Running Club: The ultimate race against time post-apocalyptic thriller

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I thought this was just going to be an average book but it was really quite good. Ed is whiney and mostly useless, and if this were a real apocalypse he would probably be one of the first to die (probably because someone killed his whiney ass) but he and his unlikely friends do alright. Well, not really...a few die, Ed is maimed, and his wife leaves on the boat without him but Ed learned some valuable life lessons...which may have been more useful to him before the world ended but better late than never. Maybe I've just read too many post apocalyptic books lately... or maybe I've just read the best of the best and now no one will ever measure up to Station Eleven (read it if you haven't; amazing piece of literature!). I was moved by Station Eleven, excited to tell everyone I knew about it and loved the side stories and philosophy. In this book the most moved I felt was to close the book and do something else. Mark and I stared at the words for a few seconds before they made sense and I had processed my own dull memory of the night before.

It is so frustrating to read four chapters of brilliance and then wait for that magic during the last 3/4 of the book. Only to realize as you approach the end that his boring, annoying dribble of a story is all you're going to get after the amazing start. Makes the rest of the book feel worse than it probably is. I looked behind. Frank had scrabbled to his knees and was standing in the middle of the road, staring straight at me. But Mark and I had turned from the shutters. Jabbar peered up through the slats as well. Far away, we heard a low, nasal drone. It was an ancient sound, like a rusted handle turned on something that had not been used in a long time. A sound that was not supposed to be heard anymore, a sound that belonged in a different century. It began to rise slowly in pitch till it reached and held its hideous, gut-wrenching howl.

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The end is a perfect combination of victory and sadness. A way to resolve a story such as this without coming out too optimistic is difficult and I do appreciate that Adrian J. Walker resisted the urge to tie it all in a bow. The first four chapters would make an amazing short story about an asteroid(s) impact on Earth. I rate those four chapters 5 out of 5. And then the rest of the book comes... and ruins the magic. In most running clubs you, you know, run. While a small part of this book is certainly about running (and it's clear our author has experienced a runners wall, high and all the emotions and pains that come with it); the reality is it's really just your average the world went to hell the moment we lost amenities book. The attempted scary, philosophical mini side stories fall flat. It's so sad to me that Walker created a world where so many things could be done and instead there is no depth to these events.

These early starts had been going on since Christmas. We had tried all the advice in the books, from friends and family. We laughed. Nobody really bought it. It was summer; it was hot. This had to be a joke, some kind of reality TV prank. That’s what people said: “It’s a joke.” I think the supermarkets had a brief surge of cheery panic buyers, but hardly anyone really grasped what was happening. We’re idiots. Creatures of denial who have learned not to be afraid of our closets. We need to see the monster in the room before we scream. Events from this point seem to lurch from one set-piece to another, with dull interludes breaking up the action. At times I thought it read like a cheap television series, full of scenes that didn't quite fit together and full of characters I struggled to feel any empathy for. There were very few nice or helpful people here, instead the world now seemed to be populated by buffoon caricatures, weird cult groups and vicious gangs. Where did all the normal people go?

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Perhaps that comes across as heartless or selfish. All those people, all that horror, all that death. But was it just me? Didn’t you feel the same? Couldn’t you almost hear that collective sigh, sense the world’s shoulders loosen? Did you find no comfort in the knowledge that the show was over, that we didn’t have to keep it going anymore? I don't wish to give too much away so I’ll be a bit sketchy from here. At some point after the asteroid strikes, Ed finds himself part of a small, dysfunctional group which included:

My job grated my very core. My marriage gave me vertigo. And my kids… Well, I wasn’t what you’d call the most engaged father. I went through the motions all right, but let’s just say there are lots of urgent things you can find to do around the home and it’s amazing how long it can take sometimes to put out the bins. Du weißt nicht, was das heißt, jemanden zu beschützen [...] was es heißt, nicht beschützt zu werden. Du hast keine Ahnung, wie wichtig das ist. Einfach für jemanden da zu sein. [...] weil du nur für dich selbst da bist. [...] Weil du nie Vater werden wirst. Vielleicht hast du recht, und dich braucht niemand zu beschützen. Vielleicht bist du es einfach nicht wert." (S. 150)Anyway, yes, I hold up my hand, guilty again. I insisted on my right to sleep. Beth conceded, but only on the proviso that I took the early shift on Saturdays and Sundays. I couldn’t really argue with her. There’s only so far you can push it with a woman who’s just given birth. On the upside, towards the end I did start to care a little about a couple of the survivors. But really only a smidgen. In summary, I found this to be over-long and poorly conceived. If you're a fan of this type of tale then take it from me, there’s much better stuff out there. About two and a half stars but rounded down due to the hollering. But what we did have—and what they didn’t—was a cellar. Our kitchen had a small walk-in pantry. For some strange reason—it probably appealed to her heightened nesting instinct—Beth thought that this was just about the best thing ever. It didn’t have the same effect on me, of course, but in its floor was a hatch that led down some rough pine steps into a space that was about the same size as the kitchen above it. But nothing’s ever that simple. Returning from a salvage run in the city, Edgar finds his family gone, taken to the south coast for evacuation by an international task force. Suddenly he finds himself facing a gruelling journey on foot across a devastated United Kingdom. Accompanied by a group of misfits that include a large, hairy tattoo artist and an old man who claims to have run around Australia, Edgar must race against time and overcome his own short-comings, not to mention 100 mile canyons and a very strange council estate, to find the people he loves before he loses them forever. I looked up and scanned the tall trees for signs of life. The branches were perfectly still and empty. The bushes, usually trembling with tits and starlings at this time of year, were deathly quiet.