Where to start? I love disaster stories, especially those centered on weather. This story had plenty of potential. The details, however, left me debating whether or not I'd actually finish it. First off, I truly disliked the narrator. If I hadn't bought the book a couple of years ago, I'd have returned it to Audible. His voice acting was profoundly annoying. Others might not feel the same, but for whatever reason, I hated how he portrayed all the characters. Perhaps, if I had only read the book instead of listening to the majority of it, I might have been more inclined to overlook some of the other things that bothered me. With the awful narration, though, I was even more annoyed by the other small stuff.
None of the characters, other than Stormy the dog, were likeable. The main protagonist was whiny and shallow. The author clearly tried to suggest a redemptive story arc with his relationship with his gay son, but none of it rang very true to me. By the end of the book, regardless of all he'd been through, he's still sitting on his rear, feeling sorry for himself and drinking too much. It was literally where he started and all because he was cheated out of money by a guy he knew was a Hollywood shark, yet was idiotic enough to expect to uphold a deal made via a handshake and no contract amendment.
Then we have the FBI agent who's hiding her migraine headaches from her bosses because the meds she takes for them make her so groggy and mentally foggy that she has no business trying to do the job. As someone who's lived with migraines for decades and taken more than one med for them that knocked me flat out, I can't exactly get behind the notion of a federal agent being so selfish that she'd hide the health ramifications just so she can stay in the field.
The Hollywood guy was just annoying in every conceivable way. I understand that was deliberate, but he didn't have a single redeeming quality, which had me hoping one of the tornadoes would do him in. The crew that accompanied him was barely mentioned at all, making it impossible to care one way or another whether any of them were in any danger or not.
The "bad guys" were supposed to be complex characters that inspired ambiguous feelings due to the abuse they suffered at the hands of their adoptive father, which we're told about when they're fist introduced, but then they go about murdering everyone who gets in their way, so that nixes any hint of sympathy or understanding their past might have engendered. And, of course, there's the fact that they say they're going to "lay low" after they're seen by a state trooper right before they murder an injured store owner, yet they immediately rob and murder another person, then decide to go after a possibly mythical pile of money at a location that they don't even know is going to be hit by a tornado (and thus fit their MO) until after they're already heading toward it.
So, basically, none of the characters has any redeeming qualities. None of them are likeable. None of them "grow" or "evolve" at all through the entire book. The main protagonist thinks his father's ultra conservative Christian views are wrong and bad, yet clings to them so fiercely that he turns his back on his own son because he's gay. Even more absurd, his decision on how to reconcile his apparent beliefs is to just say, "I love my son, I'll let God decided if he's wrong." Really? He couldn't make that decision a decade and a half earlier instead of driving his son away? (We don't really know what happened because none of their interactions from that time are relayed at all.) Oh, and lets not forget that the man was stunned to learn his son had not only joined the Army, but was a Green Beret. Yet, he supposedly still had contact with his daughter, who never once mentioned it, even in passing over the ten intervening years? Seems odd, to say the least.
And finally, at the end, we have the protagonist feeling sorry for himself, drinking, avoiding the woman he supposedly fell in love with, all because he didn't get the million dollars he wanted. He got $14,000 though, in the beginning. I know his vehicle was wrecked, but one would assume he'd carry insurance on it, especially knowing what he was going to be doing with it. Same goes for whatever equipment he'd purchased with that money. Yet, he's whining about how broke he is, and avoiding the woman because "he has nothing to offer her."
I'm not even going to go into the assorted dives into Christian theology the author attempts to make, or the greed that seems to the only real motivation for the protagonist. He repeatedly puts himself and everyone else at risk by being reckless as he chases that cash. Oh, and I'll just go ahead and laugh at the notion of predicting with any reliability the likelihood of tornado outbreaks a week in advance.
The story had a few entertaining aspects. Very few. Mostly, I just liked the dog. Anyway, as much as I hate giving a bad review, I just cannot pretend I enjoyed this book. Others certainly seem to have liked it just fine, so perhaps it was just me.