We Are Unprepared

By: Meg Little Reilly

Narrated by: Zach Villa

We Are Unprepared is a novel about the next big storm, the one that changes our relationship to nature and each other...the superstorm that threatens to destroy a marriage, a rural Vermont town, and the Eastern Seaboard when it hits. But the destruction begins months earlier, when fear infects people's lives and spreads like a plague.

Ash and Pia's move from Brooklyn to the bucolic hills of Vermont was supposed to be a fresh start - a picturesque farmhouse, a mindful lifestyle, maybe even children. But just three months in, news breaks of a devastating superstorm expected in the coming months. Fear of the impending disaster divides their tight-knit rural town and exposes the chasms in Ash and Pia's marriage. Ash seeks common ground with those who believe in working together for the common good. Pia teams up with "preppers" who want to go off the grid and war with the rest of the locals over whom to trust and how to protect themselves. Where Isole had once been a town of old farm families, yuppie transplants, and beloved rednecks, they divide into paranoid preppers, religious fanatics, and government tools.

We Are Unprepared is an emotional journey, a terrifying glimpse into the human, environmental, and cultural costs of our changing earth. But hope awaits on the other side.

©2016 Margaret Reilly (P)2016 Harlequin Enterprises, Limited.

Sticks with you

Something interesting about this story; it has stayed with me. Did it totally knock my socks off on the first read? Meh, it was fine. Since then, however, I’ve given it at least a few repeat listens. It pops up in my thoughts frequently, which I would say is a ringing endorsement for a piece of short fiction. I was compelled to write this when searching my library for “the We are Unprepared book I liked”, yet again, during some lovely down-time. Well done!

great story and great story teller.

it was not fast paced but it still was able to keep my attention.I love stories about this topic but there are so many and all almost done the same way yet this one was diff. The characters were loveable and believable.

A Sociological Almost Post-Apocalyptic Thriller

This is one of those books that the 4 feels unfair and fair at the same time. I really did enjoy this book, it kept me glued to my seat while I was making a long drive. But there were also parts that left me feeling unfulfilled and/or confused.

The premise of the book was really good, a looming superstorm that could bring uncertain amounts of bad weather to a Northern Vermont town. The story revolves around Ash and Pia (and their marriage, happiness, and unhappiness). Ash was a really likable guy -- like really enjoyable to read (I'm a lot like him). And Pia was an incredibly well thought out character. She started off really likable, but in the end, I think that Reilly made her harder and harder to like.

I felt like the storms were going to play a bigger role in this book. They were definitely a looming character the entire time, but it wasn't until the last fourth or so of this book that they even happened.

This book was much more of a sociological look into the life of Ash and Pia then it was a post-apocalyptic thriller (that it looked and felt like). There is a lot going on with Ash and Pia and Reilly covers most of it in the first 3/4 of the book.

With all that said, I still did really enjoy We Are Unprepared. It was a really good book, written at the right level, using the right amount of "umph" for most people to love it. This is definitely an almost post-apocalyptic thriller that anyone can approach.

Overall, We Are Unprepared was a pretty good book with some really good thriller writing intermixed with a lot of sociological inter and introspection from the main character Ash.

Good narrator, long and painful story

The writer spends so much time in the time before the storm that it gets boring, she makes Pia look like a bad person when Ash is the one cheating on her... full of clichés and not really much about how we are unprepared.

I like Zach Villa as a narrator and that's why I got this book. Good performance on his end, but long and painful story otherwise.

Author Is Unprepared

All characters are unlikable. The premise is ridiculous. The reader was pretty good, but with a very disappointing book.

Are there editors anymore?

I can't believe how bad this writing is. The story is all over the place, contradictory, repetitive, assuming, and very very precious with itself. I really tried, because I hoped that it would settle in and get its legs, but it didn't, and I was not going to spend much more time trying to make myself like it.

I can't imagine that this went through without an editor (?), so I would put some, if not most of the blame for this disaster on them.

The narration was pretty bad, too. He was going a million miles an hour.

Unpleasant experience.

Written for a pre/ young teen reader

Any additional comments?

I chose to listen to this book because of my interest in climate science fiction. However, the characters and plot are written in such an immature way that I can only imagine that it the book was designed with a pre/ young teenage reader in mind.