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A review by hazelbright
All the Stars in the Sky by Sarah Lyons Fleming
5.0
This charming trilogy +1 has stuck with me for a few weeks now, quite a few books later. Turns out I miss my friends from this series, and writing this review helps me connect with them again. Cassie is one of the funniest, most clever wisecracking female protagonists - strike that - THE funniest, most clever wisecracking female protagonist - I have read. She doesn't start out that way, though. It takes a zombie apocalypse to reveal to her humor's best and truest use: coping with pain and getting through it to the next day. Understated insights like this are scattered throughout the book. Fleming never hits you over the head with them, either. She is far too skilled for that.
This series had a lot of really cool survivalist (prepper) information in it, all of it correct as far as I know. I learned a few new things, too. That is one of my requirements for a really great read - it has to tell me something interesting that I didn't know before. There is plenty of that in this series.
What I liked best was that it ended with perfect timing, not too suddenly as if the author wanted her paycheck and had put in her 300 pages, so wraps it up with someone blabbing an explanation; and not too overwhelmingly detailed, turning the ending into a tedious and maudlin affair. It was like when I danced the Hora at a wedding. The excitement built and built, and then slowed, all of us joyful and breathless. Then the sweet older gentleman (a stranger) holding my hand gave it a little squeeze, which caused me to turn to him, and he smiled and let go. It was like that. A flawless denouement. Fleming seemed to enjoy telling her tale, and I certainly enjoyed hearing it, and she let me down easy. She took us from the start to the finish of the story and not beyond, and left me satisfied. No cheesy, money-grubbing cliffhangers to maybe keep the door open for a follow-up book. Just a good solid ending.
Another thing I liked a lot about this book was that it described how people truly would behave in a post-apocalyptic world. We are as successful a species as we are because we are incredibly cooperative. It's a lot easier to write a post-apocalyptic novel with all kinds of villains doing really evil things. Conflict is important to a story, but so often it seems staged as if the author has a wad of scraps of paper in a hat, each of them bearing the description of some evil person who will push the plot forward. Fleming does not go there. That is lazy writing, and as easily as the writing flowed in this series, it seemed clear to me that Fleming had put a ton of work into it. It was simply perfect. Excellent plotting, timing, character development, humor, and all of it quite feasible, even given the zombie theme.
Quite an enjoyable read.
This series had a lot of really cool survivalist (prepper) information in it, all of it correct as far as I know. I learned a few new things, too. That is one of my requirements for a really great read - it has to tell me something interesting that I didn't know before. There is plenty of that in this series.
What I liked best was that it ended with perfect timing, not too suddenly as if the author wanted her paycheck and had put in her 300 pages, so wraps it up with someone blabbing an explanation; and not too overwhelmingly detailed, turning the ending into a tedious and maudlin affair. It was like when I danced the Hora at a wedding. The excitement built and built, and then slowed, all of us joyful and breathless. Then the sweet older gentleman (a stranger) holding my hand gave it a little squeeze, which caused me to turn to him, and he smiled and let go. It was like that. A flawless denouement. Fleming seemed to enjoy telling her tale, and I certainly enjoyed hearing it, and she let me down easy. She took us from the start to the finish of the story and not beyond, and left me satisfied. No cheesy, money-grubbing cliffhangers to maybe keep the door open for a follow-up book. Just a good solid ending.
Another thing I liked a lot about this book was that it described how people truly would behave in a post-apocalyptic world. We are as successful a species as we are because we are incredibly cooperative. It's a lot easier to write a post-apocalyptic novel with all kinds of villains doing really evil things. Conflict is important to a story, but so often it seems staged as if the author has a wad of scraps of paper in a hat, each of them bearing the description of some evil person who will push the plot forward. Fleming does not go there. That is lazy writing, and as easily as the writing flowed in this series, it seemed clear to me that Fleming had put a ton of work into it. It was simply perfect. Excellent plotting, timing, character development, humor, and all of it quite feasible, even given the zombie theme.
Quite an enjoyable read.