This book is as much about the world ending and the things people will do to survive as it is about Edgar's battle with his own personal demons. When two of the men betray them and abscond with their only vehicle, Ed decides to make the last several hundred miles by running.

In a sort of grand comeuppance, the universe rains down the apocalypse from the sky on Edgar's cozy little life (after he completely ignores warnings of the possibility for weeks) and destroys everything. I am not a fan of a book that has you believe one premise throughout the entire book; only to throw that awry at the end. I don't want to spoil it, but this is a really emotionally intelligent book, full of dark humour, excellent plot twists and a certain kind of empathy and sweetness. I note some runners have complained about the lack of authentic running content but they have missed the point. But the apocalyptic scenario offers a number of scary, thrilling and inspiring moment to complement the navel gazing.

Jedes apokalyptische Szenario ist zeitlich begrenzt; weil die Menschen den Wettlauf um Wasser und Lebensmittel zwangsläufig verlieren werden. You’ll want to meet Jesus, you’ll want to holler at the rising sun, and you may highlight a ton of passages on your kindle, like I did. What I learned: we need the world end and a target to start to run (to lose the weight and rid of our laziness).

After the country is decimated by meteors survivors must cross the UK by Christmas to escape to the Southern hemisphere. I wasn't expecting a lot and have read quite a few books that could be described as similar, for example The Girl With All the Gifts, but this was different for two reasons. I definitely had some grumbles while reading it, but then I got to that ending, one of the most perfect endings I've ever read, and my earlier protests felt petty.It might have been bearable if it were on a printed page but on audio I was forever being assaulted by the narrators voice hollering in my ear! Waiting to see what crazy challenge was going to come up next was part of what made this novel interesting; every time you think they've caught a break, something else comes up. Grimes was my favourite character but her death was ridiculous to me because she was a skilled soldier but managed to be the only one killed by some strongmen with guns. Dabei nehme ich an, dass dieser Umstand dem Autoren, als er diese Figur schuf, überhaupt nicht bewusst war.

Yet a world that’s been broken offers its own kind of optimism; it can be rebuilt, and so too can relationships that before the apocalypse appeared to be unfixable.The smaller plot points might have slipped from my memory over the past twelve months but within just a couple of chapters of Walker’s sequel, The End of the World Survivors Club, I was right back with his characters as they struggled to survive and find a way to live in a world that’s been decimated.