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MY REVIEW

How do you review a book when there is only one character?

Get lost in his mind. Share his highs and lows. He won’t run out of food for a long time. He can create power through solar energy. He can have hot showers and cold drinks. But, there is no one to talk to. He will always be alone. His memories, especially his regrets, hound him, dragging him so low he can’t function. There is no one to help him. He must help himself.

Travel with him. See the sights while looking for survivors. Where are they most likely to be…if they are anywhere? Transportation is easy to find and gas is plentiful.

Could there be animals? Pets? My mind kept going to Terminator, when Sarah Connor is in the Jeep with her dog.

How do you end the book? I kept wondering how the book would end. I mean, he is the only human left on the planet. Would he drink and drug himself to death? Would he create a homestead and settle down? Would there be no dramatic or happy ending?

I love apocalyptic/dystopian novels and was surprised at how much I enjoyed My Only Friend, The End by Steven Owad. Steve managed to keep me turning pages, having to know what comes next. The emotional journey hit every high and low you can imagine. The ending…I was satisfied. What else could I ask for?

I want to thank Steven Owad and Paper Angel Press for the opportunity to read My Only Friend, The End.

GOODREADS BLURB

Surviving was easy. The hard part—living alone—starts now.

For Owen Bale, life in Great Falls, Montana, is good. He has a loving wife and son, a career as a writer, and plenty of reasons to get up in the morning.

The charmed existence ends one sun-kissed day when everyone in town—maybe everyone everywhere—drops dead. Owen is left alone in a city on fire.

The options sit tight and wait for help or seek out survivors. One thing’s if Owen doesn’t move—and move fast—the stresses of the flash extinction will swallow him whole.

He sets out in search of people—and of the cause of the devastation. Cosmic cataclysms. Pandemics. Bio-warfare. Earth has been through five mass extinctions. How do they differ from what’s happened now? Maybe God was behind the carnage. Or little green men. Whatever the answer, why was Owen spared? And if he’s alive, it stands to reason others survived, too. If all people everywhere are in fact gone, will there be any point in going on?

Staying sane and strong in a hostile landscape filled with unexpected dangers would be easier if Owen’s own inner demons weren’t along for the journey. Finding the post-civilization promised land will take every ounce of courage and self-knowledge he can muster.

• Genre: Apocalyptic, Contemporary, Disaster Fiction, Dystopian, Fiction, Literary, Science Fiction
• 241 pages, Kindle Edition
• Published November 26, 2024 by Paper Angel Press

ABOUT STEVEN OWAD

Steven lives in Calgary, Canada, where he works as an editor. His novels have won praise in publications such as Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine and Mystery Scene, and his stage plays have been produced in theaters throughout North America.

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