The Darkness After: the Pain is Almost Over

I am so happy to be almost done with this book.  It's been a long time since I read a book this frustrating, with such awful plot, characters and dialogue.  If you know me, you know I am book-lover and like, if not love, every book I read.  But I didn't like this book in the least, and that's saying something.

There is honestly no hidden meaning or message behind this book.  All it is is "Watch Mitch and April walk around in the woods to find their families!  Yay!"  As a result, unlike some of my favorite books The Hunger Games, Divergent or The Fault in Our Stars (Yes, I'm a white fangirl, get over it), there are no eloquent quotes that give us a glimpse into the characters' perception of the universe or what this book could really mean.  Instead we have sentences like this, which no teenager would ever say:

"We've got to move really slowly when we go up this creek to make sure we are utterly silent in our approach" -page 222.  NO ONE SAYS THAT.

As for plot, something finally happened.  Woo hoo.  April and Mitch find Jason, Mitch's sister's friend's older brother (phew that was a mouthful), bloodied and bearing news that Lisa and Stacy were taken by some low-lifes in the area.  However, since the author never talked much about Mitch's sister and the experiences they've shared, the reader doesn't really care.  Compare this to the Hunger Games, where we feel Katniss's need to return to Prim deeply, since Katniss grew up caring for her and feels very protective.  In The Darkness After, Lisa is just a Family Member.  Similarly, for April, her daughter Kimberly is just another Family Member, a symbol of yo average family with yo average people in it.  We don't know anything about the characters' connections with their sister or daughter, so we feel disconnected.

Honestly, there's not much to write for this post because not much has changed.  It's still the same static characters who don't grow because they were already adjusted to their environment, the same stiff dialogue that would be acceptable for a Brit and a Brit only, the same plot that has dragged on with the same repetitive actions for so long that I feel like I've been reading this book for months.

Here is a summary:

Disney gifs are the best analogies

P.S. The author has written multiple other books, and those might be better.  If y'all are interested head on over to his website.