Another book read as an audiobook during the great cross country criss crossing I'm currently undertaking (CT to MI to LA to CA). I only got through this one due to some rather large areas of no cell service in the upper peninsula that made it literally impossible to find a different book.

That bit out of the way, let's move on to the real issue with this story: rampant stupidity. Attributed intelligence is less than worthless when you fail to actually show it- it makes it much harder to excuse when the characters do stupid things... And this story is literally built upon stupid things.

The plot can be summarized thus: there was a war, and so a bunch of intelligent immortal scientists decide to save the world and prevent global warming by killing off humanity in the least efficient manner possible (drones), only to be stopped by the plucky teen who they've trained to be their successor. Along the way we're shown apparently functioning virtual reality being put to use in experiments actually less scientifically useful than the stated purpose they lie to the general populace about, several increasingly ridiculous manhood rites, and the complete failure of anyone involved to see the blindingly obvious.

It's not just that the characters weren't smart. It's that none of them acted in a manner consistent with a basic human level of sentience. A lot of the decisions made were so incoherently dumb I think a five year old could have spotted the problems.

So yeah. Aggressively cliche without any worthwhile underpinning. Even if "dystopia" seems to be genre enough to support sales in and of itself, writing about human characters requires a baseline level of competence for them to qualify as "human". ( )

Young man excels in his studies in the underground colony. He is promoted to the management (the only one in memory). All other adults at age 50 look forward to being integrated into the virtual reality and giving up their human bodies. He escapes from a train wreck and finds himself alive in the outside world which he was taught was uninhabitable. He finds some native people living in groups and lives with them until they are almost all slaughtered by the Park Service. He then makes his way back to the control base where he meets the daughter of the creator of the colony and then the creator. They are destined (by the father) to become the last free humans in control of the colony and the Park Service.

ok world building - ok character development - I don't feel like there was much breadth of world presented and not much room to push further. The characters to me seemed a little flat, more reaction than depth of character
overall will probably not read more from author ( )

LOVED this series! I'm not the type to be taken by surprise in books as I can usually guess what's going to happen next, but this series kept me on my toes the entire time!

It has taken me months to convince my 12 year old daughter to read it, because she didn't want to read about a boy being the main character. She finally gave it a try and I keep hearing her burst out laughing. She is just as in love with this series as I am and I'm happy that Ryan was able to write a book that could convince my daughter that it's still very entertaining to read a book from another gender's point of view. ( )

This book shares some similar themes with the Wool series by Hugh Howey, which I had read and really enjoyed a little over a year ago. I can’t go into detail about what was similar and what was different without spoiling either book, but I can say that they’re both post-apocalyptic books in which survivors from a cataclysmic event on Earth have been living underground for many generations. Most residents are kept isolated and ignorant of what’s really going on outside their own little area.

I’ve seen people compare Wool to the Fallout computer game series, but I really thought it only had a very superficial resemblance. The beginning of The Park Service, on the other hand, had some extremely strong similarities with the tutorial section of the Fallout 3 game. The similarities with Fallout ended before too long, although there continued to be some similarities here and there with Wool.

I don’t want to write too much about the story and ruin any surprises because there are several twists throughout the book as the true picture is slowly revealed. Although the story wasn’t very unique in my recent experience, it really was told well so I enjoyed it anyway. I probably would have enjoyed it even more if I hadn’t read anything similar before. In comparison with Wool, The Park Service has much more of a Young Adult vibe, mainly because the story takes place from the first-person perspective of a fifteen-year-old boy. Other characters who get a lot of page time are also around that age. However, in terms of the events that actually happen during the story, I would consider The Park Service to be at least as dark as Wool. Probably quite a bit darker, actually.

The main character, Aubrey, was likeable and sympathetic. There was another character I also really liked who played a prominent role in the book too. However, for a boy who was supposed to be very smart, Aubrey sometimes seemed excessively naïve and slow to grasp what was going on. In the beginning, I could overlook it because his world has been turned upside down and he was out of his depth. By the end, however, I thought his experiences thus far should have led him to the correct conclusions more quickly. There was another character who showed up later on, who I really can’t talk about without spoiling too much of the story, but I didn’t care for that character very much. I’m referring to Hannah. I never really trusted her, maybe in part because she was kind of a mystery to the main character so we as readers didn’t really get to know her very well. I was surprised by some of her choices at the end which were more decent than I expected, but I still couldn’t manage to warm up to her. I’m still half-hoping she’ll turn out to be evil to justify my dislike of her. If not, then I hope she becomes more likeable in the next book.

The story wasn’t complex, but it did have some moral dilemmas to consider and it held back answers about what was going on in a way that helped to hold my interest. I had many questions as I read and, as is typical for me, these questions kept me reading in search of the answers I wanted. These questions are pretty well answered by the end of this book, and the main story is mostly wrapped up while the ending is left open for the continuation of the trilogy. I had been stuck in a waiting room for longer than expected while reading this book, which is largely responsible for my finishing it so quickly. I immediately jumped into the second book because I want to see where the story will go next. ( )