This is the beginning of the Southern Grit series. I'm reviewing all three. Like a lot of these books, they are all kind of a big long book. Anyway these are what I think of as kinder, gentler apocalypse stories. They don't fall into the macho survival of the fittest, gun fetish stories. The people act like people I know. They help people even when it might be dangerous or scary to do so. The pacing of these books were oddly slow, but I didn't mind.