Fun book can't wait for more!

My new favorite post apocalypse series! With a good blend of action, plot development and practical prepping information “Going Home” is a fun read which draws you in and keeps you interested from start to finish. Although it’s not, the writing made me thing of more of a journal being told (mostly) through the eyes of the main character Morgan. It has a great bit of detail and takes you through his thought process making it easy to get engrossed in the story. The characters are a bit static and the author’s ideology comes through loud and clear, but the story is just too good. Also, I’d like to give a big thanks to the author for writing a series where the story continues from book to book but makes each one stand alone! I am certainly going on to the next book but with this one being wrapped up so nicely I don’t feel as if I’m being made to read the next book to get the whole story!

The narration was very good!

61 people found this helpful

a story as subtle and creative as the pen name

What would have made Going Home better?

I've listened to plenty of bad books and plenty that have been badly narrated, but never until now have both those qualities been so successfully combined. I've never left a bad review for a book before (or any review until this, to be fair), but the only thing more clumsy than the storytelling in this tale is the almost laughably awful narration.

At first this combination had me convinced that Duke Fontaine and A. American had to be the same person, but the narrator misses or mispronounces so many obvious references (who refers to NAPA auto parts as N-A-P-A?? There aren't periods in NAPA!!) that the only offensively patronizing explanation I can think of is that the author and narrator both benefitted from the same 5th grade education in english and literature following their emergence from under massive boulders. I haven't looked at the actual text, but either the comma key on the author's keyboard is stuck down or the narrator can't get past six or seven words without a comma-implying pause to check his pulse.

I'd take issue with the casual xenophobia and racism (dot not feather indian convenience store owners; post EMP bombing of Israel by the ragheads; Mexican gangs running amok in Phoenix), sexism (annoying helpless screaming women who cant handle a weapon and who listen when told to shut the f*** up), homophobia (the three muskiqueers), obliviously arrogant morally superior white male characters and offensively stereotyped black characters, but I can't be convinced the author actually is intelligent or self aware enough to know any better.

You should definitely give this book a listen if 1) you are looking to be bombarded with undefined acronyms for brand-named gear manufactured by companies whose PR departments would almost certainly take issue with their products being referenced in this book, and/or 2) you are interested in comically low brow disaster stories that you only keep listening to because you can't quite believe what you're hearing, and/or 3) you are a white guy who voted for trump because dammit its your right to be casually offensive to everyone else.

What do you think your next listen will be?

not any more of this series. how did this get past one book???

What didn’t you like about Duke Fontaine’s performance?

It was pretty much the worst. Please never let George Guidall or Jim Dale or Patrick Tull (rip) hear this because I'm pretty sure they'd shake their heads in bewilderment and immediately retire from the whole narration thing.

You didn’t love this book... but did it have any redeeming qualities?

none that come to mind but i promise to think about it.

Any additional comments?

yikes.

73 people found this helpful

Cliche + drivel + preppie porn = Going Home

Our noble, reluctant, honest, all-around just a good guy — ain’t he? — heroic protagonist must get home. Will he? Is the book crammed with brand name prepper gadgetry that you are unlikely to have ever heard of? Is his wife beautiful? Does she know how to handle a gun? Does she let a man be a man? Does he cook pancakes for the pig-tail bedecked little rapscallions worriedly awaiting him? Will he be forced to protect the innocent against cliched bad guys of all races? Will he team up with equally cliched good guys? Will women just be allowed to be women, darn it? Will he be rescued by salty ex-master sergeants who will themselves be reluctantly — wait? Is that reluctance? - forced to take on big brother? Will stereotyped aw-shucks but just complex enough characters abound? Will you want to hear a sentence starting with a gerund ever again? You decide.

50 people found this helpful

Loved it!

What a great book! For those of us out there that enjoy a good SHTF novel...this is a good one. Not as good as One Second After in my opinion, but still a very good book. This one was a little different from a lot of the others in that the story follows a few people as they attempt to get home after everything falls apart. They are stranded a few hundred miles form home and the journey to get home is what this book is about.

I think that some of the situations, and the short amount of time it takes for society to completely degrade, might be a little bit of a stretch...but then again, who knows. We, as a society, MUST spend some time and make plans for how we are going to handle these kinds of possible scenarios. The thing that I really like about these kind of books, is that IT COULD REALLY HAPPEN! When you read this book, it's almost like you are reading a self-help book. I love to take the situations that the characters are put into and think about how I would handle them. Would I do something different....would I be able to, emotionally or physically, do what needs to be done. It is something that I think about a lot, and personally prepare for. LOVE IT!

The narrator also did a fine job. Great, consistent characterization and voicing. This one is a winner!

30 people found this helpful

Promising, but.....

I just finished Book 4 which should be the final of this series, I hope. Book 1 started with the protagonist being quickly thrust into a grid down, lights out situation while stranded hundred of miles from home. At first I thought this was going to be a dud, but the more I listened the more compelled I was to continue with this journey. I know that most listeners will find it distracting at how the author describes in detail the survival supplies and gear that the lead character (Morgan) uses along the way, but I found it to be somewhat informative and well thought out. Obviously things go from bad to worse and Morgan encounters drunk rednecks, thugs, bandits and eventually, the government. Although it's becoming more common in the survivalist book genre, this is the first series I've listened to that seems to latch on to Alex Jones notions of a hostel national takeover by government agencies such as DHS, FEMA, IRS and others. It's a sobering notion to consider and this first book really convinced me to buy Book 2 and find out what happens.

Book 1 wasn't great. The narration is mediocre at best and some of the subplots were too formulaic. Books 2, 3 and 4 didn't improve in the narration department and took things too far by introducing characters and subplots that just became stupid. Some of the dialog between characters was idiotic. Book 4 especially. In fact, Book 4 had quality of writing you'd expect from a teenager. I totally lost interest in the characters and story. It is obvious that the author was stumbling around trying to build a suitable story and explain why the world fell apart. Book 1 set a standard that Book 2 barely met and the other books completely missed. Books 3 and 4 should have been condensed into one book. They don't deserve your credits like the first two.

41 people found this helpful

Very good series!

Normally after 3 books a series gets stale, however, A. American has managed to hook me in, and now I'm waiting for book 4 to come out this summer.

A mix of 1 Second After, and the failure of society after a Zombie attack, this time the "Zombies" are the DHS; who doesn't like to hate the DHS?

I wouldn't want to call this a "Prepper" book, however, I like that this book made me think about the story, even after listening to the 3 books in the series. If you're thinking about becoming a "Prepper", this book is going to make you think more then you may have before. Are you really ready?

Fontaine does a really good job keeping you in the story, so even with 3 books it's not sounding old.

25 people found this helpful

Still intense the 2nd time around!

If I enjoy a book, I usually listen two or three times. I did this a couple of years ago when I first found this one.

I just now picked it up again, and it is still a thriller! I will have to listen to the whole series again now.

A American did his homework and created an intense tale.

57 people found this helpful

one of my favorites.

I love this series! I've listened to it 3-4 times and it never gets old.the characters are great, joking around alot of the time but when it's time to get serious and go to work that's exactly what they do. If you like fictional survival books I'd put this one at the top of your list.

5 people found this helpful

An indulgent prepper fantasy

This book wasn’t for you, but who do you think might enjoy it more?

I'll be recommending this book to several veteran and prepper friends of mine, but I wish I hadn't wasted my time with it.

Has Going Home turned you off from other books in this genre?

I'm definitely not turned off books in the TEOTWAKI/post-apoc genre, I just don't think this one was particularly well written or narrated.

How did the narrator detract from the book?

The narrator regularly mispronounced common words (e.g. saying "N-A-P-A" instead of "Napa" to refer to the auto parts chain store, calling Eglin AFB "EE-glin", etc.) and tripped up in the middle of sentences. It really took me out of the flow of a book I was already having trouble staying with. There were also no audible cues (pauses, tones, etc.) when the focus shifted to another character so it often took me several seconds and a rewind to get back on track with the story.

What character would you cut from Going Home?

I would have cut Jess from the book completely. It seemed like she had some promise as a character when she first appeared and in their early travels, but she quickly faded to the background with the introduction of another male companion (Thad) for the lead character. She transforms from spunky sidekick into rape-victim-to-be and we get to watch the other characters rescue her and her helpless family, then never hear from her again.

Any additional comments?

The whole story truly felt like the author had a checklist and was methodically moving through survivalist scenarios like a field guide. Scene with gangsters threatening the main character, check. Scene introduce an awesome black character so people don't think I'm racist, check. Scene with main character rescuing a damsel in distress, check. Scene introducing a female character who is not a damsel in distress so people don't think I'm sexist, check. At every encounter where something goes wrong the author takes pains to have the characters determine who's at fault and who's responsible just in case the reader is uncomfortable with moral ambiguity. But never once does the author describe the main character as what he is: a murderer. I rolled my eyes so hard reading this book, I'm surprised I can still see straight.

10 people found this helpful

Personal dislike for profanity, makes for a poor listen

I didn't finish it... Got to about the end of chapter 2 and stopped listening. It is a shame because as far as I could tell I think I would have enjoyed it. For me personally, when someone uses an abundance of profanity, it feels like they don't have the intelligence to choose other words. I'm sure that's not the case, but it was completely unnecessary and over the top for me. The narrator was very good. Sorry I wasted a credit.

4 people found this helpful