Julie Trettel

While straining the bounds of credulity (really, your bunker is that well stocked after so many years?), I liked the idea of the doomsday preppers and how they dealt with coming out of the box, so to speak. The multiple romances of the main character were a bit much as well but considering the girl is a teenager, I guess it's not beyond the realm of possibility! The book ended on a bit of a cliff-hanger and I would pick up the next one to see what has happened in the world since the last one ended. For me, the fascination is with the world these characters inhabit, with the collapse of civilization as we know it. Considering what's going on in the world now, the book doesn't read so much as fantasy as a cautionary tale.… (meer)

The Compounders by Julie Trettel was quite good. The book held my interest and although the heroine was a bit flighty, she is after all only 17. The book deals with a doomsday prepper that has enclosed his family and other support personnel in a bunker. Several years later they are trying to reintegrate into a very changed world from the one they left. The characters had depth and personality. I would fault the author for making all the men good looking and the heroine gorgeous. That type of demographic only exists in Hollywood. The book kept me reading which is something a lot of ARC's fail to do. I actually got caught up in the story.… (meer)