 Monument 14 is, uh, there's no getting around it. This book's bad. Like, it's nowhere near the worst thing I've ever read, but it's bad. This is the introduction song. It's not very good, but it's not too long. Okay, so the concept for this one is super, super simple and easy to understand. Basically, there's this huge disaster which wrecks a large part of the United States like it caused. I don't want to go into too much detail about it, because even though it would only be a minor spoiler, if you do wind up still wanting to read this book, it's probably the coolest part of it. Like, it has some really neat imagery, and you can really get a feel for just how big this disaster is, even though the whole world isn't destroyed. But basically, there's a big disaster, wipes out a bunch of cities in the U.S., causes some really bad weather patterns, and a bunch of kids wind up getting stranded in a super store. Like, it's called a Greenway, but it's basically just a Walmart or a Target, you know, that sort of thing. And they're in Monument, Colorado, which I thought was kind of cool personally, just because that's the area I'm from. So it's neat to have something like that. Anyways, and the chemical weapons depot that's at NORAD somehow leaks, and so chemical weapons get all over the place, and the kids basically realize, okay, we're stuck here by ourselves with no adult supervision, and now what? And so the concept, you know, it's simple and it's interesting, you know, it pulled me in, it drew me in right away. It's everything after that that I don't like about this book. Like, I will have a spoiler section at the end, because you really can't talk about the worst parts of this book without spoilers, but basically at the beginning there were a lot of little things that kind of bothered me, but I was like, you know what, the good parts are good enough that it's, I don't see it as that big a deal. But as time went on, it got worse and worse, and it got more and more on my nerves, and by the end I was like, man, fuck this. So the first thing that I have to say about this one is that it's, I got an audiobook and listened to it, and this is the first time I'm going to say that you should definitely not get the audiobook, because while I was listening to it at the very beginning I was like, wait, the narrator sounds familiar, and then it turns out it's Todd Habercorn, and I was like, oh, well, I can't hear that voice without thinking of your, let's call them indiscretions, and beyond that he's just not a terribly good narrator, so just, you know, read this one, don't listen to it. But anyways, the main character is this guy named Dean, and he's a high school student, and, well, he doesn't have much of a personality at all. Like, he has a crush on this girl named Ashbridge, who's also stuck in the store with them, and he's kind of good with kids, I guess? Other than that, he really has nothing, and he gets worse later, don't worry, I'll talk more about that. Like, he just becomes whiny and winds up causing a bunch of trouble among the other kids that are stuck there, so as it goes on, he gets bad, and don't get me wrong, if you want to have a character who is, you know, flawed, that's a good thing. Like, these flaws in Dean's personality might be fine if there was anything else to balance them out, like, anything at all. Like, if he was smart and helped them do, I don't know, something important in the store, that would be one thing, or if he was brave and led kids out to fights or something like that, then that would definitely go a long way towards helping my opinion of this character rise, but as it stands, he is just annoying and obnoxious, and I hated him. And beyond him, the story of this book is very much non-existent for about, we'll say, 70% of the running time, because at the beginning, you know, we have the part where they're all getting stuck in there, all the internet and phones and everything are down, so it takes them a little bit of time before they figure out what's going on and when they see it, they're like, oh, shit. And then in the last quarter, some stuff happens, which is pretty interesting, I'll get more into that, but for the most part, this book is just focused on mundane survival. You know, making sure that we don't get toxic air inside the store, making sure that they ration everything, solving some interpersonal issues, which I will say that there is one bit where there are these two boys that don't really want to be part of the group and kind of go off and do their own thing, and I'm thinking like, okay, they're going to cause trouble, but they wind up getting pulled back into the group without too much trouble, and I actually liked the way that bit was handled, but yes, there's interpersonal drama, and it's just mundane survival stuff, and at first I was okay with that because that helps this stand out a little bit among the crowd. You know, it doesn't have to be about fighting zombie knockoffs every 10 pages or anything like that, so it worked out pretty well, but even if you're going to be about mundane survival, something has to happen. Something has to happen every now and again, and for the longest time, nothing happens. Okay, it's just Dean hanging out with people, and there's a bunch of like little kids with them as well who oscillate between being kind of funny. I'll admit there are some genuinely funny bits where kids just say things that they don't realize are weird, and so it made me laugh, and just being really annoying, and I'm not even saying that little kids wouldn't react the way they react in this situation. I'm certain that they would, and all things considered, they actually deal with it pretty well, but that does not make it less annoying to listen to, and then at the end a bunch of stuff happens, and I was thinking, you know what? This book had some pretty serious issues, but I'm going to give it a mixed review, but then the very end something so bad happens that I want nothing to do with the sequels, and I'm not going to say it left a bad taste in my mouth. That would be hyperbolic, but it just, it's so bad, and it really makes the rest of the book feel pointless. So I think that's about all I can say for the non-spoiler part. Do I recommend this book? Not really. Even if you're looking for an apocalypse, even if you're looking for specifically young adult apocalypse, and even if you're looking for young adult apocalypse that's in the near future, because this one is like 20-ish years in the future, they don't specify, but they do give some hints with the technological advancements, and they mention that Cory Booker is president, which is, I mean I've heard stupider ideas, but the point is, even if you're looking for something that specific, there's really not much here for you. Like, there's nothing here that I haven't seen done better in a million other places. So do I recommend it? No. Now, spoilers. Okay, so the moment I knew that I just hated Dean, and I didn't even dislike him, was when he goes to another part of the store where Astrid, the girl he has a crush on, is talking to another dude who she is friends with, and they're having, it's a private moment that they're having, and Dean is listening in on it, which is bad enough as is, but then Astrid actually takes her shirt off, and they start to have sex, and Dean is still there watching, and at that point, Dean, buddy, I get that you're in too deep by that point to just like stand up and go, hey guys, what's going on? But nonetheless, you really should not be watching that, and at that point I really started to hate him. But what makes it even worse is that a little bit later on, the dude, Jake is his name, the dude that was there, Dean is talking to him, and Dean just gets angry at him and says, like, oh, you don't actually love Astrid, you just wanted for sex, blah, blah, blah, and it comes out that, oh, he saw them, and so Jake gets angry and beats the shit out of Dean, and frankly, Dean kind of deserved it. But then in order to make up for it, Dean goes to Jake and apologizes, and at first I was thinking, okay, that's good, there's no lies about what was going on then in order to make Jake less angry at him, and I just, okay, and right after that, there's a scene where everyone has to bathe because they have lice on their heads, so they have to shampoo it really, really hard, and there's, one of the kids is 13 years old, and all the older boys who are like 17, 18 are ogling her, like, they're seeing how, they're seeing through her shirt because of the water and everything, and I'm just like, that's gross, guys, she's 13, and what makes it even worse is that, not long after this, in the last quarter of the book, like, these two adults actually come into the store and all the kids and everything are like, oh, okay, there's people outside and I'll get a little more into that in a minute, but basically, one of the adults is a pedophile and he actually rapes the 13-year-old girl, and, well, that just makes it retroactively even worse that all these older dudes were ogling her, like, what the fuck? That is not okay in any way, shape, or form, and don't get me wrong, when she gets raped, it's treated as a bad thing, it's treated as a horrible occurrence that happened, but nonetheless, it's still really gross and uncomfortable what the other kids were thinking about her. I really don't even like talking about it anymore, so I'm just going to move on now. And now we get to the very end. So after they, you know, kill the pedophile dude and the other adult that was there, he just dies of his injuries, basically, while they were there, the kids learn that people are being evacuated out of the Denver International Airport, and so they realize, okay, if we can get there within two days, then we can be flown to safety, and Monument Colorado is about an hour and 40 minutes drive to Denver, and obviously, if the traffic is heavy, then it's much longer, and in this situation where, like, the highways are clogged with cars and there's danger out there, it's going to be even slower, but they think that they can make it, so they take the school bus that they arrived in and cram it full of food and stuff, and there's like, okay, we're going to take off, we're going to go now, and at first I was thinking, okay, you know what, this is actually kind of exciting. I'm excited to see what happens next, and while I wouldn't have been clamoring for the sequel, I wouldn't have been super... what's the word? I wouldn't have been against reading it, but then Dean is talking to Astrid and apparently she's pregnant, like she's, I think, four months along she mentions, and she's afraid that if she goes outside, then the chemicals are going to hurt the fetus, and so she wants to stay in the store and she's begging Dean, please, please stay, and listen, girl, you can't stay is the thing. Like, I get that you're scared and I get that you're worried about your kid and all that, but you just have to take the risk in this case because if you stay, you're staying in very dangerous territory, you're sitting on top of a pile of food and water that other people are going to try and go and get from you, and even setting that aside, you don't know if anyone is ever going to come to rescue you, so sometimes playing it safe is even more dangerous, and Dean tries to get an answer to leave at first, but eventually he just says, yeah, I'll stay with her, and everyone else is like, are you guys sure? And he's like, yeah, we're staying, and it's really stupid, but what makes it even worse is that a couple of the little kids stay with them, so I know the next book is going to be full of more annoying little kids shit, and as they're leaving, Dean hands a journal to his younger brother, because his younger brother is angry at him for staying, and he tells him, hey, write everything down, and then you can show it to me later, it'll be like I was there, so just from that, I know that the next book is going to be switching back and forth between Dean's POV and his brother's POV, and his brother's... I mean, I guess it would probably be more interesting just because they're actually going out and doing stuff, whereas Dean is just staying in the store, but my god, that ending is just so stupid, and there's... yeah, there's no way I'm reading more after this, so what I recommend Monument 14 to anyone, not really, like I said, there's not much here that's worth getting excited about at all, and no, that's it, this is a short book, so there's not much else good or bad, so thanks for watching, if you got this far, please like, comment, subscribe, all that, thanks to my patrons, their names are here, thanks to Oppo Savalainen, brother Santotys, Christopher Hawkins, Christopher Quinzen, Joel, Joseph Pendergraft, I'm sorry, it's getting to be a long list, Taylor Briggs, Tobacco Crow, and Vaivictus, you guys are cool, and if you want stuff like early access to my videos, and being able to vote on topics, and just, you know, being cool, you know, if you want to do all that, then give money to my Patreon. 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