ARV-3 by Cameo Renae (Review)
Publisher: Indie Inked
Number of pages: 370
My rating: DNF
I did not finish this book. My review is for the first 260 pages only.
This is probably one of the worst books I've read (or attempted to read) this year. Right from the beginning the book was fraught with problems. Bad world building and one dimensional characters were just two of the problems. Ultimately, as my hatred for this book become more and more potent, I gave up on it.
ARV-3 is set in a post-apocalyptic world where the earth or the sun shifted and then all the nuclear power plants screwed and killed everyone. Abigail Park's (Abi) family hid in an underground bunker for 13 years until the nuclear radiation started to fade away and the surface would become safe again. Unfortunately, for those who did not have a secret bunker, they would be vaccinated against radiation (theoretically, can that even happen?). This vaccination turned them into mutants called Arvies. Meanwhile, Abi's family emerges on the surface and begins their journey of finding others.
Okay, so there are around 15 people living in the bunker. It's a big bunker, with many levels and even a park. Abi's dad built it way before the earth crapped out just because he was paranoid. It has all these high-class oxygen and water recycling machines. Her dad is a NASA scientist, and as far as I know, scientists at NASA don't get paid enough to be able to produce a well functioning bunker. Building a huge, comfortable bunker like that would cost a fortune, and I don't really see where or how he would ever get the money and the manpower to do so.
Right when the book begins, I got blasted in the face by infodumping. Yep, we get to hear all about the earth dying and all of the characters in the bunker (who will still be boring and one-dimensional to me no matter how much time is spent describing them) and how much everyone trains and who does what in the bunker.
ZZzzzZZZzz...
Luckily, that part of the book passed.
To then go into a barrage of insta-love and Abi's terrible personality.
Abi and Finn fall deep into love (no surprise there!) and start mooning over each other 24/7. Obviously Finn is incredibly hot, nice, and strong.
Abi is an unlikable character. She's one of those characters who's always bragging about how well they can fight, how well they can shoot, and generally how awesome they are. Abi actually says that she could easily take out a Navy SEAL and that she's an amazing shooter. She was so up herself, and I guess I would kind of understand if she could actually hold her own in a fight, but nope. When they leave the bunker, Abi craps herself at the sight of the Arvies even though she knew of their existence (okay, that's actually sort of understandable). When her uncle and Finn decide to go on a dangerous mission, Abi whines and brags to them about it until they allow her to go. When they do go, she freaks out completely and her uncle and Finn have to make up for her dead weight. Even worse, she ends up getting jealous when another girl talks to Finn and starts calling her a "bitch" for no reason.
Ugh.
Every other character isn't really worth talking about. There's nothing special or interesting about them.
This book had so many common sense problems.
If the Arvies are mindless cannibals, then why haven't they eaten each other off yet?
There are approximately 15 people in the bunker and they have been there for 13 years. Abi claims that her father stocked enough preserved food to last them for many years. They never seem to run out of food in the book.
So, let's assume that each character has three servings of canned/dried food every day.
15 times 3=45 cans or packages a day.
There are 4745 days in 13 years.
4745 times 45=213,525 cans or packages.
That food would be incredibly expensive and take up a lot of space. Given that the people in the bunker never go hungry and never mention depleting stocks of food, we can assume that they have much more.
What the hell? How would someone even get that much food, and more importantly, how would they pay? The resources needed to keep 15 people alive for 13 years are huge. I find it really hard to believe that one paranoid scientist could do all of that.
I mentioned before that everyone decides to leave the safety of the bunker and face the outside world. They were aware of the radiation problems are the Arvies, so why the hell did they leave? They went through a whole bunch of trouble to do so, when they could have just waited until it was safer. Given by the fact that one person dies and all the others are in danger and have nowhere to go, they weren't really well prepared anyway.
There were countless moments in the book which made me scratch my head in confusion because of the poor common sense used.
That was pretty much what the book was; a bunch of shitty characters and shitty decisions that eventually lead to shitty outcomes. When Abi became jealous and petty, I gave up altogether.
I would not recommend this book to anyone. However, I can see this book being liked by some people, due to some of the post-apocalyptic and survivalist elements. But stay away from this book if insta-love, stupidity, and stuck up characters bother you.
An ARC was provided by the publisher via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.
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