From Goodreads: Formerly titled: Scourge of an Agnostic God

ashington DC Intelligence Analyst Chris Jung has gone fetal. Tormented by panic-fueled obsessive thoughts and buried in TPS reports, the walls of his cubicle are closing in. Fortunately for him, a mysterious series of EMPs plunges the industrialized world into darkness, saving Chris from himself and spurring him to head for the hills with his pregnant wife.

Along the way, Chris meets Rita Luevano, a jaded Unitarian reverend who leads a motley horde fleeing to Monticello. Together with the remnants of a Marine battalion, Chris and Rita help establish communities of urban refugees in the Shenandoah Valley. They and the other lucky few who have escaped civilization’s collapse learn the lost arts of subsistence agriculture, blacksmithing and archery in order to adapt to a world devoid of technology and instant gratification. Faced with the specter of starvation and death, Chris and Rita must face their own demons and conjure the dormant will to live even while pop tunes and TV commercials still ring fresh in their ears and they no longer have Wikipedia to give them the answers.

Not everything from the old world has perished. One corporate entity, a black ops military security corporation, weathered the collapse and seeks hostile takeovers of what the burgeoning communities have scraped together. Thrust out of their suburban malaise and into a gritty struggle for survival, a tenacious spirit awakens in the haunted souls of Chris and Rita who find their authentic selves at the end of civilization.

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I generally really enjoy “end of the world” type novels, but this novel was a little too depressing and morbid for my tastes. Now, I feel bad saying that, especially as Juge actually captures what life would be like should we lose the industrialized world, and he does it very well; if this were to happen to us, today, it would be quite morbid and depressing. We’ve already seen what happens to our society when a hurricane or natural disaster strikes and we lose power for a small length of time, but imagine if that were to be magnified tenfold. Society would lose it–people would go to war with each other, there would be murders, rapes, beatings… little to no trust, which, in my book, would be unbearable.

Now, going into this novel, I knew that it wasn’t going to be a happy story, but I don’t think I was ready for just how depressing it really turned out to be, or how realistic, either. I’m used to YA novels that tend to be far in the future, so it’s easy to remove myself from the harsh reality as a reader. Yet, even then, the characters tend to have at least a little hope, but Juge’s novel focuses mostly on the present day, and that makes this a hard hitting read as the bleak outlook isn’t far in the future; it could happen tomorrow, and it’s scary. Add in the murders, threats, and beatings that the characters witness, and this novel, though very well written, really made me sad and depressed. So, I can’t say I liked the novel, but I certainly won’t say I disliked it, either. I really think that many readers are going to enjoy this realistic read, it’s just a little too close to home for me, but I definitely think all should at least check it out and see. I guess I’m just not ready to face hard truths like Juge has to offer us in this novel. Two and a half stars.

I received a copy of this novel from the author is exchange for an honest review.