Into Autumn – A Story of Survival by Larry Landgraf is a story that talks about one of my biggest fears: what if we lose all the electricity and law & order from our lives! This “what if” is the basis of this book. Lars Lindgren had a lifelong dream, which was to live in the country. One day he decided it was time to live his dream. He bought the land and announced to his wife that they would be moving to the country; however, she was less than thrilled with this idea. Lars was adamant and so was his wife. He soon realized that divorce was the cost of his pursuit to his dream. Nobody knew at the time, but this might have been the best time to make the move out of the city.
Somewhere in a city, Eileen, who was a stock analyst, was getting worried as she checked the constant fall of the stocks. There was no rise in any stock — only fall. To add to her worries, she heard the reports of many robberies from every corner of the city. She decided it was best to go as far away from the city as possible when she heard rounds of gunfires in her neighborhood. After a long, scary, and unhygienic ride, she reached at the property of Lars. As luck would have it, Lars and Eileen agreed to live together to survive the apocalypse.
The author has done an extraordinary task of covering almost all the aspects of an apocalypse: the rise of crime, the fall of law and order, the lack of basic amenities, etc. The manner in which Lars and his friends take proactive actions to ensure their survival is quite interesting. How city people begin flocking the country in order to get some food is terrifying. In these trying times, Lars and his neighbors’ friendship was a ray of hope. There are not many characters, which is a major plus for the readers who have trouble remembering many names.
The style of writing that the author has selected for this book is descriptive. There are descriptions of each and every mundane activity. Sometimes, I believe, it’s better to not repeat the description of each activity very frequently. After a while, I lost interest in reading the details of their morning rituals, shooting practices, evening coffee, etc. The first time the author described each of these details, I was really interested in reading every line of it. Because reading this allowed me to know the characters better; however, the nth (n>2) time I read about the same thing, I got really distracted and, quite frankly, bored. This is extremely unfortunate because I was attracted to this book’s story and wanted to love it. The pace of the plot is really slow for my taste. I could not make a connection to any character until the very end. Without including any spoiler, I would like to mention that at around 30th chapter, I was able to connect to Eileen’s dismay.
Sadly, the book did not land on my expectation. I am sure the readers, who are interested in knowing what to expect in case apocalypse comes knocking our doors, would like reading the in-depth description of the author. Having said that I would rate the book 2 out of 4 stars.
P.S. This book was an “OnlineBookClub.org Book of the Day”. Check it out on OBC bookshelf by clicking following link:
http://forums.onlinebookclub.org/shelves/book.php?id=50675
