This was massively disappointing. And it could have been brilliant. It had that potential. The premise was great, particularly what caused the fall of civilization. But that was all wasted with all the irrelevant nonsense that had nothing to do with the premise. An ungodly amount of time was spent on only marginally relevant characters years and years and years before the apocalypse. And the story would keep going back to years before and the utterly mundane details of the lives of barely relevant people. Like history and journey of everything they had in the decades after the fall had to be explained in excruciating detail including everything happening the lives and work of the person then. I can't even adequately explain how ridiculous it was. Especially in addition to the jumping all over the place in time.

The real killer is when the story was focused on civilization falling, the direct aftermath, and the story a few decades after it was great. I was really into what was happening and the world Mandel set up. But then it'd come to a grinding halt and we'd be in the past being bored to tears. I actually started screaming, "WHO THE FUCK CARES?!" at it in my car. So much time was wasted that could have been spent weaving a rich and fulfilling story in the aftermath. The resolution of the Prophet could have been better if given the proper time. Even in the last thirty minutes of the audiobook, most of that time was spent on the last two days in the life of the actor who died at the beginning of the book and who was, for some reason, the lynchpin connecting most of the characters. Almost no time was left to wrap up the relevant stories. And so much freaking time was spent excruciatingly establishing intersecting paths between these characters and then we didn't get to see them unravel those connections.

 Damn.

There is is so much extraneous story about this actor's life and people connected to him! Why?? It's so unnecessary and aggravating.

We're in the collapse with our leads story going, she's looking at a book about the actor's life then it's a chapter excerpting the book, then it's back in time to his second ex-wife letting a friend of his know about the book, then it's about the friend's feelings on the book, then it's the friend interviewing a random secretary about her boss for his job THAT HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH ANYTHING AND YET GOES ON AND ON AND ON.

WHO

FUCKING

CARES?!?!

What relevance does this have to the story??

Now the chapters are all over the place in the present and the past and it's so annoying! This book had so much potential.

WHAT IN THE FRICKING FUCK WAS PART FREAKING THREE?!?!

That had to be the most ridiculous waste of time I've read/listened to in a book in a long time. Two hours that could have been more about the fall of civilization, or continue in the time after the fall. No, instead we spend all that time on the intricate life details of the actor who died in the first few pages of the book and his first wife many years before the fall. And when I say intricate, I mean it could have been another (boring) book entirely. What the fuck?! And none of the slight nods to small elements in the story is are enough of an excuse for that waste of space. 

I hope there is some massive surprise reason later on that we had to sit through that, otherwise the rating for this book will likely be worse than it could have been.

This book is . . . super weird. 

I like that the heroine is a ventriloquist. That's definitely something I've never read before. Buuuuuut, the dummies speak to her. Even when they're not there. There's just this running commentary from like five dolls going on in her POV. I really don't know what to do with that. She may or may not be crazy but she's internalized those dolls way too much.

Then there's the hero. He may or may not be a psychopath. The heroine calls him that (among some great one-liners) because it's not far off the mark if even half of what he did to her when they were kids is true. How in the actual hell are we supposed to root for them to be together? How do you redeem that? He was terrible. That's an understatement. And everyone is all, "it was a long time ago. He/I was just a kid!" Err, that is in no way normal behavior for a kid. Even a messed up kid. 

And, of course, even though there was no indication of it coming whatsoever a sex scene came out of the blue. But that was probably because I was in the shower. It never fails, when I listen to a book the sex scene(s) will come up when I'm in the shower with the book on speaker and my family home, even if there is no logical reason for it to happen. It's so obnoxious! And, of course, this sex scene had to be super weird. Sigh. 

I'm not sure how mysterious the mystery is. Unless SEP comes out of left field with some there is really only one person it could be and has motive. 

Because I wanted to edit the hell out of this book. Even listening to it. There was so much repetition, certain words used over and over as well as statements and descriptions. And the sex scenes with the terrible euphemisms were even more cringe inducing read out loud. (And of course only came up when I was listening on speaker in the shower. D=)

Overall, I liked the story quite a bit, but I didn't like the Hero not coming to his senses before finding out what he needed to know. And Packard seems to write them going a step too far. This one wasn't as far gone as the sequel's hero by a long shot, but what he said to her was pretty bad. I would have liked more discussion at the end (with some hero groveling) to work some of that out.