The Storm by Virginia Bergin
Genre: Apocalyptic
Published by: Pan Macmillan
Pages: 304
Format: ARC E-Book
Rating: ★★
Series: The Rain (#1)
Where to Find: Goodreads | Amazon

I’d didn’t quite realise that this book was set 3 MONTHS after the first book. Ruby managed to survive on her own for 3 MONTHS? It must be easier than I thought! But, I began to warm up to Ruby. She was more comfortable in her situation and not so whiny. It’s fair to say that she went through some character development for her personality, but her actions sure didn’t change.

First of all, she doesn’t seem to appreciate how much better surviving will be if your with another person. Saskia and Princess both have to struggle to stick by Ruby when they’re travelling about the country in their high-jacked cars. But also, she doesn’t seem to have learnt that in an apocalyptic world, people will do anything to survive, whether that be killing animals, strangers or friends. It’s not a very good idea to run into the hands of an enemy, who has rumours surrounding them of child-murder.

This is a mistake Ruby makes one too many times. The whole plot was based around her running to and from these horrible people in a little triangle of travel. In between this travel, she’d try and get rid of her companions. Overall, the whole book was very VERY repetitive and….wait for it….PREDICTABLE.

I called it. I freakin’ called it. It was such a cliche, it was practically inevitable. How convenient is it that the one girl who survived can carry on surviving, along with her true love? To end a dystopian/apocalyptic book with a genetic conclusion is the biggest cliche of the genre. One of the only reasons I continued reading the duology was to see how the author dealt with the situation of the rain. It’s not like you can demand it to stop!

I was disappointed, so I’m only going to give this book 2 stars. I’d recommend reading ‘The Rain’, but it ins’t much of a stretch to figure out what happens in the sequel. I guess I haven’t really given overt spoilers, but you can probably guess how the book concluded. In my opinion, not great.