The book just seems to go round and round and not really have any sense of direction. The writing is OK, but I gave up when I was around 1/8th of the way through as it really did not capture my attention. ( )

A very nice book, with lots of humour throughout. I liked the diary aspect of it, although at times i felt it got a bit boring. The protagonist was not very likeable, but then again his age explains a lot of the stupid decisions he made along the way. ( )

I really enjoyed this. It starts off as a holiday diary of a 23 year old British back-packer making his way around Europe. The tension builds gradually from inconvenience and annoyance into the full blown horror of a zombie apocalypse. It felt much more real and plausible to me than most of the zombie books I've read, with one exception.

Mark spends most of his time running away and trying vainly to get home. He travels with a small group of friends, who gradually get split up for one reason or another. He travels through Spain, over to Morocco, into a civil war torn Algeria and then to Tunisia. Through this he relies on others to speak or translate or help. Mark is just a normal guy with no special skills, no weapons and no language other than English. All he wants is to get back home. What he gets is hardship, starvation, official obstructionism and a load more.

The story is presented as a diary. This diary starts on paper, but there are clear mentions at key points that he's been using his down time to type and email it to himself and his parents. So as you read it you can't be sure exactly what is going to happen to Mark, or if he will make it home. As he reflects himself about 80% of the way through, the summary of his experiences are "and then it got worse". It most certainly does... ( )