The earth is dead..wiped out by 'the shroud' which covered the earth and blotted out the sun. Luckily 'Larry' - think Elon Musk - knew what was coming and created a bunker for him and his fiancee's family to live in and survive.This isn't the fastest, most rip roaring book - it goes along at a steady pace, with the family going from one disaster to another to stay alive. However, I really got into this book by about halfway through.My thanks to Netgalley for this copy in return for an honest review.

Five survivors are inside a shelter (or SHELL) after a cosmic dust cloud has wrapped itself around the Earth blocking out the sun and dropping the temperature to -127°. The survivors face numerous problems from low morale to mechanical issues.

The premise of the story was interesting. It wasn't a true diehard survival apocalyptic story as it focused mainly on the characters. The apocalyptic end of the Earth was only the backstory of the novel. As such the reader didn't learn much about the rate of the rest of the world which was a bummer as I would have loved to learn humanity's fate. All the reader learns is there was a weird explosion near Cheyenne mountain and approximately 60 people in Finland survived.

The characters were annoying overall. They were too perfect. The way they talked and interacted was unrealistic as no one acts that way. A good example of this was through their journal entrees. They were too optimistic and full of Larry worship. Even when things were falling apart they were too happy with ZERO real complaints.

Overall it was a good apocalyptic novel that is family/relationship oriented and less science based. Thank you to Netgally for this ARC.

DNF. While the premise of the book is interesting the story has been done many times before with dramatic survival after a world ending catastrophe. The writing was stilted and the dialogue was not what would be heard in everyday conversation. I could not continue while being constantly irritated by the writing style.

The premise of the story was great and, while not traditional sci-fi since it is near future, it was pretty interesting. The characters were a bit too perfect for me and some of the dialogue seem too "everyday" and not literary enough. Also there were a couple of errors about America in the text, but I suppose that is merely cosmic payback for all the times us American writers have flubbed details about exotic locales around the globe. In addition, unless the book is setting up a sequel, I thought the ending was a bit abrupt.

That having been said, I enjoyed the book.