It's flu season and so people are slowly getting sick. As with every year, there are deaths involving the very young and seniors but when the flu suddenly becomes more virulent, otherwise perfectly healthy adults start to die. It quickly becomes clear that the world is in a pandemic, which just might mean the end of the world as we know it. Those who do survive the mega flu are the people who have already had HINI. As they climb out of their sickbeds, they learn that for some, survival has benefits - that's right, shiny super abilities like talking to animals or the ability to sense people's emotions and read minds.
Zoe and Dani are on opposite coasts and childhood best friends for evah. Fortunately, both survive the massive flu and decide to cross the country and meet in the middle. Both travel with military personnel as they struggle to survive. After the Ending, basically shifts between the POV of these two women.
Zoe and Dani are both 26 but from the way they are written, their behaviour reads closer to 16 or 17. Of course they are both stunningly beautiful, not skanks (unlike any other woman who is hot for their man) or fat (cause totes fat people are all disgusting) They keep in touch with each other via email. There is barely any gas, electricity and running water are touch and go at best but nothing can keep the world wide web down. I understand Fairleigh and Pogue's desire to have communication between the two women but having them communicate through email meant a lot of repetition and made this book longer than it needed to be. It would have been much better to have them agree upon a meeting place before leaving their homes and then shifting the POV that way.
Dani and Zoe both engage in sex and are sexual beings. Though they are confidant about their desires, neither of them has any problem with using anti woman slurs every time they are angry. CeCe for instance is a "super skank", as well as a "psycho skank" By far however, the slur used most often is bitch, with 42 different occurrences. There are no male equivalents to these words but no man, regardless of his behaviour were written in any way a problematic as the women in this story. Jason who clearly has a long sexually history cannot be slut shamed because he's just so damn handsome and it's natural from him to sleep around. No matter what a man does, it is never attributed to his gender or his sexuality but the women of After The Ending have no such luck.
