The End of Everything Series by Nate Johnson

The End of Everything series by Nate Johnson was published in 2022 and 2023.

1.  The End of Everything, 2022
2.  The End of the Beginning, 2022
3.  The End of an Era, 2023
4.  The End of Hope, 2023
5.  The End of the Road, 2023
6.  The End of the Line, 2023
7.  The End of the Chaos, 2023

Book 1 summary:

At the end of the world, Nick Peterson never expected to be stuck with a bunch of kids.  A seventeen-year-old boy shouldn't be responsible for keeping other people alive.  But he didn't have much choice in the matter.  That's what happens when everyone else dies.

A CIT (counselor in training) at a summer camp high in the Poconos, Nick is left in charge of nine kids and fellow CIT Jenny O'Brien.  No big deal.  But when the people in charge don't return, Nick and the others slowly learn the truth.  No one will ever be returning.

A deadly virus has broken out across the world at the same time.  A virus with a 100% fatality rate.  Only those who are lucky enough to be on their own will survive.  In fact, the last thing you want to come across is someone you don't know.

Blessed with enough food to last them months, Nick and the others hunker down and try to figure out how to survive in this strange new world.  Devising solutions and new ways of doing things to stay alive.  But after a winter of starvation, Nick has no choice but to brave former civilization and pray the virus has died away.  It is either risk death to get food or die of starvation.

The discovery of a sanctuary on the other side of the country becomes their goal.  Loading everyone into a bus, they start their way there.  Fighting both the few remaining people and the elements to reach safety, only to discover it isn't as safe as they hoped.

Each book in this series features different characters caught in the aftermath of the virus.  Through happenstance, they end up in the Pacific Northwest in the same vicinity as the characters from Book 1.  Plot summaries of subsequent books do not spoil the rest of the series.

Book 2 summary:

Luke Sinclair is left alone in an empty world where almost everyone has died.  After spending two years searching out the few remaining people, he discovers Brie Osborn and her fellow survivors.  But at eighteen, he isn't ready to settle down no matter how pretty the girl is.  However, after discovering three children trapped in an evil situation, he reluctantly accepts the responsibility of saving them. Unfortunately, Brie would be vital to his success.

Two teenagers and three children being chased by evil men in a world gone mad.  A world without anything that they had come to depend upon.  Nothing works as it should. There is no authority to turn to.  Only two people doing the right thing.

Book 3 summary:

Five young people trapped in a skyscraper at the end of the world must learn to survive in a new era.  An era where all the old rules no longer apply.

Evan Carlson finds himself responsible for four other teenagers at the top of the Palmer tower in New York City.  Unable to descend into the chaos beneath them, they must scavenge from their new home.  But, even isolated, the evil from below still rises and must be dealt with.

Finally, when they are forced to break free, they discover everything is worse than they could ever imagine.

Sydney Parker had her entire life mapped out.  Harvard next year.  Yale law school four years later.  A girl's dream husband along the way.  But now, her world is ruined.  Everything she had hoped to find had been taken, and she must learn to live in this new world with death and devastation around every corner.  And a young man in Evan Carlson that would try any woman's patience.

Book 4 summary:

The small town of Hope, Montana cuts itself off as the world ends around it.  Little more than a village all alone in the mountains struggling to survive the worst of dystopian disasters.

Jake Roberts is an outsider.  A young man fighting to belong while the world crumbles.  Torn between helping others and trying to remain detached.  As the town and its people fight to survive both the plague and each other, Jake is caught in the middle of it all.  How do people live when they lose contact with civilization?  What happens when people lose what they have taken for granted?  Food, electricity, and security.  All of it gone, and worse, never coming back.

Mia Burk is left caring for her foster brother and sister as the world ends.  A situation no seventeen-year-old girl should be put through.  This new heavy burden of responsibility forces her to do things she would never consider if life was normal.  But this new world means she and her family must do whatever is necessary to live.

Book 5 summary:

Alone, isolated in the wilds of Alaska, Rachel Jordan's only goal was to keep her two little sisters alive as the world they knew disappeared.  Abandoned at her uncle’s lodge, Rachel struggles to come to grips with the new reality.  Everyone she ever knew is dead or dying.  Civilization has disappeared and there will be no rescue.  She and her sisters must face this new world all alone.

Of course, when a boy is washed up on the beach, her problems only go from bad to worse.

Half drowned, Noah McCain is forced to accept a new responsibility.  Keeping three girls alive, and finding a way to get them back to what used to be civilization.  He must use every bit of woodcraft and repeatedly risk his life just so they might survive.

Only after living through a harsh Alaska winter can he focus on escape.  He knows that long term, their only chance is to find other survivors.  Even if that means they have to walk all the way.  

Book 6 and Book 7 are set 19 and 38 years later, respectively.  The summaries are just mildly spoilerish, but since they do mention some names, I won't include them in this post.  I had really enjoyed the first five books, and I felt some discomfort when I reached Book 6.  I knew the situation would a little different, since it is set 19 years after the other books.  

It turns out that Book 6 and Book 7 are just as good as the rest of the books in the set.  What's great about the ending of Book 7 is that readers know that the survivors will be okay.  They do have printed books from the before times, and as more people gather in Oregon, they will continue to rebuild civilization.

This series is just as good at Nate Johnson's other series that I recently reviewed.  Like with the other series, these books have many punctuation and homonym errors.  Randomly capitalized words sometimes appear in the middle of sentences.  Like with the other books, the story is so good that I didn't care.  I just ignored most all of the errors, except in the rare instances where an error temporarily confused me.

If you like young adult apocalyptic teen fiction with some romance and danger without gore, then you will like these books.