The writing was good, but ultimately it wasn't for me.

Sorry for the long delay in feedback. I'm working on clearing out my Netgalley backlog.

REVIEW
I was looking forward to reading this one as it is a mash up of some of my favourite genres. I have been reading more shifter titles so I feel ready for a change and I do like the sound of the blurb when it describes Dorothy, and her setting up a base in a shopping mall when the world changes around her. How the blurb describes the setting of the book reminds me a little of the setting of Monument 14 by Emmy Laybourne and I truly adored that series, so I am hoping this book will be as good, half as good would make it a great read!

I found the sections of the book from Harrison's point of view more difficult to follow, and to be totally honest a little confusing. I much prefer the chapters from the point of view of Dorothy.

The cover depicts a post apocalyptic scene, but also what to me looks a little like some large gates with a bright light shining through, could this be the gateway to safety and salvation from the apocalyptic world the characters find themselves in?

I would agree with the genres this book is listed as being on both Goodreads, and on Netgalley. Both platforms (Goodreads & Netgalley) classify this book as Sci-Fi. Netgalley also says fantasy, where as Goodreads adds the genres of dystopian, & post-apocalyptic. As I truly love all these genres I have quite high expectations from this book and series.

I'm afraid I am having to give up and add Prelude To Mayhem to the Did Not Finish (DNF) category of books. It is quite rare that I don't finish a book and I have seriously tried with this one.
So I'll start with what I like about the book. . .I like both of the settings the main characters have made their homes. The main male character Harrison, in a lockable room in a Motel he has found. He has also been lucky and found a nearby gas station that has fuel left. I thought its was a really good touch that has him visiting a bookstore and taking out items to read, as well as leaving a payment for it. So the detail makes this act of "purchasing" a book interesting, maybe Harrison is craving some sort of normality and that's how he gets it.
The other main character is a fourteen year old girl called Dorothy. Dorothy has also made her self a base in the Hallmark store in a large shopping mall. She ventures out for food and supplies and seems to be doing very well until animal scavengers get access to some of it, forcing her a difficult journey moving what food she can salvage back to her living base in the Hallmark store.

Things I didn't like were certain aspects of the plot. I truly love the post apocalyptic genre and do enjoy fantasy and dystopian, but this book had to many random things thrown in as extra hints of maybe a futuristic element or even time-travel. I readily admit I haven't read and loved every time-travel book I have read, so that aspect irritated me - to the point I was not liking the chapters of the book from Harrison's point of view. Then to increase my genre confusion, he finds dead dinosaurs and is afraid of coming across a live one. So now we also have a pre-historic element added to the mix. It feels like the book was trying to include as many genres as it could.

My favourite character in the book was Dorothy. As a reader, you easily feel empathy with her. To say she is only just 14 years old, she seems to have great survival instincts and almost certainly made a brilliant choice of holing up in the shopping mall. Though I think I would have wanted to settle in a Debenhams, or John Lewis, somewhere that had a comfy bed on display, and in a store that would stock multiple items I would need in just one place.
Though I wasn't overly keen on the parts of the book from Harrison's point of view, he was a decent enough character, older than Dorothy, though I didn't find out an exact age, perhaps that was revealed further on in the book.
The character I took an instant dislike to was that of John Roth, he is an older man, Dorothy thinks he is around forty years old. She comes across him when she makes her way to the hardware store in the shopping mall to take a bath. John Roth comes across as rather ignorant, unconcerned, self absorbed drifter. When Dorothy attempts to ask him to stay his response is. . .well in my opinion is rather odd and not what a normal caring human male of his age would ever be like with a girl of Dorothy's age. I'll try to explain without giving away unnecessary spoilers. I didn't think a certain comment about "breeding to re-populate the world" was either appropriate or what should be in character for a forty year old man to be saying to a fourteen year old girl!

The final thing that I wasn't keen on was the whole "voice on the radio" that Harrison hears. The voice belongs to a female called Claudia (no idea of age) who is broadcasting, perhaps from a still working radio station or a pirate radio system she has managed to put together after the apocalyptic event. Claudia is repeating a message imploring any and all survivors to make their way to Chicago. I can't totally put my finger on it why I wasn't keen on this maybe I thought that this message is some form of trap? The other thing that bothered me was: where was everyone else? I mean I know with any apocalyptic event there would be a great amount that would lose their lives but surely Harrison would have seen someone else? Another survivor whilst he has been joyriding around in the car he has? Also if Dorothy thought to head to the Shopping Mall to make a base that was near to a good supply of food etc surely other survivors would have thought the same?

So, sadly I didn't finish this book. I honestly wouldn't say to anybody don't read this book as other people into time-travel/futuristic/pre-historic/post apocalyptic may really enjoy it. I really tried hard to continue and persevere with this book, but when I got to the point where I was actually dreading getting the kindle out to read the book, it was time to call it a DNF. Unfortunately this book was just not for me!

This review will also appear on my blog JeanzBokReadNReview too at some point in the near future.

Not sure that this was pure post-apocalyptic as there was a bit of a blend of magic and sci-fi here, but I loved it. The only reason it didn't get a five was it seemed to have an awful lot of things happening all at once in the beginning and I almost put it down as it seemed more fantasy than post-apocalyptic. The ending was rather abrupt also and I felt like there could have been a bit more here. It seemed as though the author decided to stop and wham you hit a wall and it was done.
Now everything after the beginning and right up until it ended was awesome. The characters, Harrison, Dorothy, and especially the pixie were well fleshed out and I loved their humorous conversations.
This was one of the few alternating POV books that didn't annoy me. And I've got to say, I really enjoyed the world building here but would have liked a bit more of "why" this happened.
This is listed as a Prelude so I was assuming that Static Mayhem came after this (even though it was published in 2010) but after reading the reviews for Static they sound a lot like the story in Prelude so now I'm not sure if it's rewrite of an old story or what.
Actually found an answer to my question on the Meyhem books HERE (https://www.goodreads.com/author_blog_posts/9942572-transitions) if you would like a bit more info on the series.