Hide and Seek

Apocalypse Parenting, Book 3

De: Erin Ampersand

Narrado por: Laurie Catherine Winkel

Events have shown Meghan that protecting her kids also means making sure they're ready to stand on their own when needed.

That's always been part of her parenting philosophy, but applying it to letting a six-year-old get up close and personal with vicious monsters? Questionable! Certainly not easy.

Meghan needs to figure out a way, however, and the aliens won't let her sit down and figure it out. While wrestling these personal dilemmas, she also needs to keep stabilizing her area, find a way to deal with these mysterious new Titans, and deal with some other nasty twists humanity's alien tormentors have in store.

©2024 Erin Ampersand (P)2024 Podium Audio

One of the best in the genre.

This review covers books 1-4 of the series, but contains no spoilers.

LitRPG is a genre that often requires the reader to "tough it out" - accepting that basically every book will have some aspects that are amateurish at best, terrible at worst. The bad aspects vary by writer, but frequent offenders are bad dialogue, bad jokes, bad pacing (lots of filler chapters), overuse of certain words or phrases, one-dimensional characters - you get the idea.

But, we fans tough it out, because the good parts of the stories outweigh the bad.

That's why it's so refreshing to read a story in which there is NO toughing it out. This book is simply good - full stop. It is professional grade writing, from minute one.

Ampersand is a marvelous writer in every way that someone can be. I can't praise it enough. There's no aspect of this book that is lacking. The dialogue is believable. The pacing is bowstring-tight. The inner conflict is compelling without being overbearing or maudlin. The system is simple enough for a layman to understand while also complex enough for the theorycrafters. The plotting introduces new conflicts at a consistent but unpredictable pace. The prose is efficient and always fresh.

If you're at all hesitant because you think it's not for guys, or it's boring, or the kids will be annoying, just give it a shot. You won't be disappointed.

Being Ghosted

The Trials are no longer optional. We now have good lawyers. I love how the mom learned that you can't always protect your kids even when you want to. It is good that they are not alone anymore a d they are working towards saving humanity.

the world development and getting a sneak peek into outer space.

I love how worried and mom focused the main character is. I also like the new monsters.

Top-Tier LitRPG

In the first two books of this series, the people of Huntsville have begun to build a real civilization in the ruins of the system apocalypse. Here, we start to see more behind the curtains of the species that created the collapse and the other species who live in their civilization. All is not well with the aliens.

The character work here is exceptional. All of the main characters have their own personalities, and all of the children act like smart children, not like short, weak adults. And Megan (the parent of the series title) reacts like a real mother might under these circumstances.

The bad-actor human enemies of previous volumes have been largely replaced by the aliens, and it seems like some progress is being made toward winning the scenario for the human race.

This has become one of my favorite LitRPG series. It has heart, a strong game system presented well, and one of the best premises of any LitRPG I've read.

Highly recommended.

Man, i really just love this series!!!

I usually don't write reviews unless it is the first book or i have something negative to say, but i just can't get over how much i love this series. In a genre that is drowning in selfish OP sociopaths, having a MC with so much heart and caring for those around her, is almost world shatteringly unique. So if pumping up the reviews means that people stop shoveling out more D bag Overlords running around with their harem of sycophants i will write a review for every book that comes out. Sadly my calculations for how long it will take for the 4th book puts it around a year from now..... still better for another quality work than a simple cash grab like so many others are obviously doing.
Make no mistake Meghan is not Jesus or anything, she has her flaws, and a few kind of dumb moments that felt odd. Still this book overall is amazingly consistent with it's theme and the world building just gets more and more interesting. Even the trials which in any other Litrpg book would have started to feel repetitive and boring, still have lots of tension and stakes that are actually increasing rather than just becoming meaningless background noise, because you never know if Meghan will convince the other humans to stop...... it is just plain good writing!!!
So if all of you are as tired of the tyranny of the "anti-social" sociopath MC's as me, I encourage you to give this book and others like it your endorsement with reviews and ratings. Together we can fix this broken genre!!!!