Allison Hewitt Is Trapped

A Zombie Novel

By: Madeleine Roux

Narrated by: Piper Goodeve

Length: 11 hrs and 8 mins

Publisher's summary

One woman's story as she blogs about - and fights back against - the zombie apocalypse.

Allison Hewitt and her five colleagues at the Brooks and Peabody Bookstore are trapped together when the zombie outbreak hits. Allison reaches out for help through her blog, writing on her laptop and utilizing the military's emergency wireless network (SNET). It may also be her only chance to reach her mother. But as the reality of their situation sinks in, Allison's blog becomes a harrowing account of her edge-of-the-seat adventures (with some witty sarcasm thrown in) as she and her companions fight their way through ravenous zombies and sometimes even more dangerous humans.

Narrated by Piper Goodeve and a full cast.

©2011 Madeleine Roux (P)2011 Audible, Inc.

Critic reviews

"Madeline Roux manages to answer the eternal question all of us must ask ourselves eventually: 'When the zombie apocalypse comes (and it will come), how will I handle it?' For my part, I hope I manage it with as much humanity and determination as Allison. But I would like to make a request for bigger weapons." (Christine Warren, New York Times best-selling author of The Others series)

Great narration and great story!

Worth the credit. Just wish there was a part 2 with this group of characters. And would love to know what happened to the rest of the blog posters

Boring

Painful, narrator was annoying. Kept waiting for it to get good, then waiting for it to just be over!!

More teenage drama than horror novel.

More stories about wishing a guy would like her than anything about surviving the apocalypse. Unrealistic and boring most the time. Had a great start, and I liked the blog premise. Characters are one sided and don't grow or change, despite circumstances. Most of the conflict is inadequately explained or glossed over, while her day dreamy thoughts about relationships get tons of detail.

I also didn't like how the comments barely mentioned other people's circumstances. Other people's stories are barely mentioned. In a halfway real story, blogs would be filled with stories, tips and tricks. Not "oh Allison! We miss you, keep blogging!" Every post.

As you have probably gathered, I do not recommend this book.

A Couple Hours I'll Never Get Back

Any additional comments?

The narration comes off campy/cheesy and quickly becomes annoying. The writing is

interesting story, terrible main character

liked the performance and idea for the book. Great performance. main character is an absolutely terrible person and super frustrating.

Unlikeable characters abound

Any additional comments?

I wanted to like this book but it was just painful. Alison does all sorts of ridiculous things, she isn't trapped except for the first 5% of the book, her idea of getting along with her fellow survivors is everyone just doing what she says and shutting up, and lastly she is extremely unlikeable. I don't mean imperfect or simply flawed. I mean I wanted to punch her in the face. I wanted her eaten. Just as an example, she has an affair with a married man twice her age (even he admits there is no reason to believe his wife is dead) and then when the wife does show up alive and well Allison has the nerve to be snotty about and to the poor woman. She stops barely short of wishing the wife dead. Alison also flits all over town for various reasons but can't be bothered to go help her sickly cancerous mother instead waiting for her mother to come to HER. She even revenge kills a guy by basically torturing him to death. Did he kill someone she loved and she lost it? Nope. He took some of her stuff. I get shooting looters etc in this circumstance but this grisly death was completely unwarranted.

Also there are some religious women at a camp and guess what? Yep, they're evil. Shocked aren't you. Alison is basically bigoted against the religious women from day one. Really? They were suspicious because they were trying too hard to be helpful and asked people to pray with them GASP! Of course they should be shot immediately! I'm not even a religious person but I have friends and family who are and Alison (and perhaps the author) are just flat out offensive anti-religious bigots. She's rude and snotty to and about basically everyone in the book - even those who were her supposed friends. She's a TERRIBLE person and for me this ruined the book.

lots of potential but disappointing

The good: Fine narration and the author is very descriptive and tries hard to establish characters, soemtimes effectively. It deosn't deteriorate into a dumb action/gore story, which I feared it would.

The bad: It starts out all right, with a story line and characters we can begin to follow and care about. But it degrades it to some endless twist-a-plot, with new scenarios at every turn, none related to the one that came before, established characters discarded with no continuity to move on to the next piece in a way that feels disconnected and not well planned. The internal machinations and goings on of the main character stop being moving at a point when it is so disjointed and far too many plot twists and new characters are in play.

The main character loves her missing mother and has a bog to inspire others, both of which get abandoned as nothing for long portions then recalled when the plot lags, as a convenience, rather than a defining mission it seems.

On the whole it started out ok, but too many characters, too many plot changes, nothing is followed through, as though there was no real plan for the story - even the main character's blog starts to feel like an interjection or a footnote, though it is supposed to be the defining means of conveying the story.

In a lot of ways, it is like it's own medium - a blog. The main drive of the story is supposed to be a personal blig durign a zombie apolcolypse. And like most personal blogs, it is disjointed and feels random... though it has a zombie apocolypse to define it, the story itself has a meandering, amateur personal bloggy feel to it.

For those sci fi, there is none of that here - no explanations or exploration of why the zmbies have happened, there is no medical accouint of it - no explanation or even a description of how it happened. Not that this is a bad thing - but just understand that this is a character study, not a piece of sci-fi or a medical thriller, or even a survival story

Like the Blog angle but not a great story

I found the blog idea interesting (but implausible). Otherwise the story was not the best I have read in this genre.

POO POO

What would have made Allison Hewitt Is Trapped better?

ITWILL DO IF NOTHING ELSE IS AVAILABLE TO READ.

Would you ever listen to anything by Madeleine Roux again?

Maybe- but doubt it.

Would you be willing to try another one of Piper Goodeve’s performances?

Not sure

What reaction did this book spark in you? Anger, sadness, disappointment?

Disappiontment

Any additional comments?

What else can I say- it was a bad book.