A woman is forced out of her bunker after twenty-nine years, only to discover the world didn't end. Content notes/warnings: death of a parent, death of a secondary character, gun violence, physical violence.
USA Today bestselling author ADRIANA HERRERA was born and raised in the Caribbean, but for the last 15 years has let her job (and her spouse) take her all over the world. She loves writing stories about people who look and sound like her people, getting unapologetic happy endings.
Her debut Dreamers, has been featured on Entertainment Weekly, NPR, the TODAY Show on NBC, The New York Times, The Washington Post and Oprah Magazine.
When she's not dreaming up love stories, planning logistically complex vacations with her family or hunting for discount Broadway tickets, she’s a social worker in New York City, working with survivors of domestic and sexual violence.
Damn, I really wanted to enjoy this, but the amount of issues is hard to ignore. :(. It had the bones of a great novella, but it read as a rough first draft. I especially wish there had been a deeper connection between the characters. It felt rushed but like nothing was going on at the same time. Of course, the story only takes place through a couple of days, but some of the dialogue and scenes with side characters could have been used to show the bond they shared. And Alma’s idea/plan could have been a bigger plot point in my opinion. Things were sort of left in the air at the end. Maybe the story would have worked better as a full novel instead. Also, there were many grammatical errors that bothered me so much. I think the whole process of making this book was rushed. Hopefully the physical books being shipped next year go through another revision after the feedback on the ebooks. There were also some contradictions in the day count in the first and last chapter, which I wonder if they were intentional or not?
Favourite quote: none because I hated every moment of this book
I genuinely thought my bisexual ass was about to ADORE this. Instead, reading this felt like needing to vomit while actively shitting yourself. A harrowing experience. Alma drove me up the wall almost immediately, and she never recovered. Her decisions made no sense, her personality grated on me, and I could not understand why two people were apparently willing to wait years for her ass. There was no emotional hook, just vibes I actively disliked.
The spice was bad. Like really bad. Awkward, clunky, zero tension, zero payoff. It read like an unedited draft where someone said “add sex” and then forgot to make it hot. It desperately needed an editor, or at least a second pass by anyone with functioning taste. Valeria should have been a guaranteed hit for me, but somehow managed to be a complete turn off, and I resent the hell out of that.
And Torch. My god. First of all, that name is stupid when the other two main characters are Alma and Valeria. Second, have you seen the cover? He looks ugly and depressed, which tracks perfectly with one, how I felt reading this book and two, how he actually behaves in it. His emotions flip flop constantly, his attitude is exhausting, and there was nothing remotely attractive about him. I kept hoping he’d improve. He did not.
I am begging the universe for the next book in this series to be better, because if not, I have truly wasted both my time and my money. This was not dark. It was not sexy. It was just miserable.
Look, I didn't hate it!! But it felt like the author started off writing a really fun, potentially action-packed dystopian bunker story that was abandoned halfway through for erotica. Which is fine!! It was fun!! But I wish the rest of the story was resolved? Idk!
“We can’t just go and knock on the door of the bunker.” Bitch you 100% CAN take down a handful of septuagenarians controlling a bunker, they literally announce when they’re opening the door and you have people on the inside.
“We don’t want to do something that will end with people hurt or worse.” Worse, like women being literally controlled and r*ped for 30 years, like I’m sure they’d be ok with the mild disruption of being rescued???
“My soulmates” GIRL you literally kissed one of them one time 10 years ago, and thought the other hated you not 48 hours ago??
Apparent side effects of the Burst include people not having two brain cells to rub together.
The concept of Alma secretly subverting the bunker overlords and the ppl on the outside planning a coup, that is a solid premise for a story, but it went downhill fast.
minus the terrible nicknames im having A LOT OF FUN this makes me feel like the middle school dystopian superfan i was i don’t know why i ever left her behind
I’m starting to have major regrets on buying this series. This was just bad?? The premise she was going for needed be in a longer book and not a novella- felt very half done because of that. Too many nicknames, spice was fine but lacked sparks.
“We were a knot of limbs and sweaty skin, and I hoped we would continue to be for a long, long time.”
Wowowow this simultaneously tried to do WAY too much and also hyper focused on the MCs’ horniness for one another.
What I liked: the social commentary and the spice.
Listen, Herrera knows how to write good spice. The multitude of scenes were plenty and hot!!!! The story's bones also were interesting and highly relevant. I'd be willing to return to this world b/c I wanted to spend more time in it....
What i didn’t like: everything else.
The short timeline didn’t help this bc I couldn’t buy into the feelings. This whole time i kept saying, “girl what?! You just found out your whole life is a lie and these people you thought were dead aren’t and you’re just…horny?!” Like Alma went from this character who was fighting back against unfair reproductive health rules to...being horny.
Similarly, the emotional core of the relationship relies on the characters’ history with one another. We’re thrown in and just expected to believe the love in both directions? We barely spend time with torch and all we know is Alma found him attractive. That’s it! I can buy into Cande a bit more given their history but only a very little bit.
There was SO much going on that it felt like very little got properly fleshed out. So many things (eg Torch speaking Spanish, Alma being on suppressors) got mentioned only in passing. I think the suppressants were supposed to explain why she was so horny all the time but there was no shape to them. It wasn't ABO and they were basically birth control and it still doesn't explain things.
The ending was the most egregious example. Like they make plans to go back for the others. There’s a major reveal. And then..:it just ends. With a short epilogue that doesn’t really close out any of the loose ends.
And I'm pretty sure i wasn’t supposed to bust out laughing at the conclusion. 😬 (Which i once again guessed. I don’t like this! I like being shocked by the twist ok?!)
Overall this felt a bit conflicted on what it was trying to do and be. This either needed to be a full length novel (which i would read but with a much stronger line editor) or it needed a much stronger dev edit to tighten and balance it as a novella.
CNs -Moderate: Gore, Gun violence -Minor: Homophobia, Sexual violence
Alma gets kicked out of the bunker she's lived in her whole life after volcano ash covered the earth and sent humans underground. On the outside she discovers it was mostly a lie. Earth has slowly recovered and old friends she thought were dead are very much alive. This is where the story goes seriously astray.First Alma's personality changes to Horny Woman is Horny, every other thought is her getting laid by her two hot friends. I don't mind this but the result was that there was no romance only horny thoughts. I had no idea why these three stayed together at the end. The set up and the first half were great. But there was just too much plot for a novella length story. The result was that nothing got resolved and the romance was non-existent. Also, I love me a nickname but Brains and Sass? Atrocious.
Dystopian novella part of After the End kickstarter collection, this series has sadly not been the best. Overall my favorites have been the Claire Kent and Cate C Wells novellas and everything else has been such a miss. But I backed the ebooks for this project so best believe I’ll try them all.
Like a couple others in this collection, this one starts off fun and had me intrigued the first 20% but then quickly fizzled out and lost me. The tropes for this one: dystopian romance, road trip, second chance. The main character in this one is living in an underground bunker in former-New Mexico, living above ground became a no-go over 20 years ago after volcanic eruptions, lava floods, acid rain, and ash clouds covering over 70% of earth’s surface. Life above ground is extremely dangerous and I did like all the underground bunker updates/news info released in the start of the book over the first 20 years of bunker life.
Like many of the others in this collection, characters quickly realize not everything they’ve been told is true and once they’re released/sent out to the surface they run into an old friend or two. This is when the plot lost it and I no longer cared because everybody was just horny instead. Meh.
I really loved the entire beginning... the other half was eh... I really really wanted to like this one. Everything was just too rushed a neatly wrapped at the end.
There were a lot of spelling and editing mistakes that need fixed. I counted at least 6 of them. Considering this author is one of the main creators of this collection, I was very disappointed. Honestly, it felt like the first unedited draft of a story, not a published work.
I didn’t particularly love any of the characters, the main character was a little annoying. I would’ve liked for the romance and characters to be more developed. I know it’s a novella, but more of a backstory of their relationships or even feeling more depth between the characters would’ve been nice. It was definitely insta lust and not in a good way. By the end, Alma called them her soulmates but I didn’t feel like there was anything particularly romantic between them. Maybe if the story was more developed, but I think this author might be a miss for me.
I also don’t understand why the book is called Bait and I do think the summary is a little misleading.
By chapter 2 there are already SEVERAL typos! How did this pass? I’ve already read 3 out of the 8 After the End books and no other book has this issue.
There’s also this sudden switch about feelings on a main character during the 1st chapter alone…how was this arc mapped out?
unforch i think there were a lot of things that didn’t work for this one. alma’s supposed to be 28 years old but she read more like someone 10 years younger. I also understand this is a romance collection so that’s the main focus of the stories but like there was kinda no plot?? like what they alluded to in a half-page epiloge is what I thought the whole climax of the story was going to be. also alma saying torch and candela were her soulmates when the three of them hadn’t even had any real conversations?? she hadn’t seen candela in 10 years and I think a year for torch?? I get it’s a novella but just felt like a lot of time was wasted on extraneous things instead of fleshing out the romance better
Bait features Alma, who is part of a bunker civilization after the world ended in The Burst. Whe she is forcibly exiled, she encounters two of her favourite people, also exiled, who have been waiting on her.
This was okay, I guess. The plot and poly progression was rapid fire and unfortunately just didn’t really click with me. I hope I don’t say it for all of these novellas, but it just seemed so quick and I didn’t get hooked by any of the characters.
And, I love a nickname, but I don’t love when the same person has three ish different names thrown randomly out in a 142 page novella. First name, last name and nickname, too many names in such a short time!
This feels like a rough draft… I’d be mad to have paid for this when it fees like an incomplete piece of work.
Book Ranking 1. Trade by Cate C. Wells - 4 stars 2. Brood by Claire Kent - 4 stars 3. First by Ali Hazelwood - 3.5 stars 4. Skin by Nikki Payne - 3 stars 5. M.A.Y.A by Nina Saxena - 2.5 stars 6. Bait by Adriana Herrera - 1.5 stars 7. Taken by Elizabeth Stephens - 1 star 8. Prima by Sherry Thomas - 0.5 star
The first half of this was amazing. Sign me up for books with gritty bunker life, and main characters taking huge risks to do what they can for the people around them.
Problem was, the plot died off as soon as Alma reunited with Candela and Torch, and the novella ended with so many unanswered questions. Even if I’d known to expect a series here, I’d still be frustrated with the lack of plot development. If the world is going to be so rich and compelling in the beginning, I need that to continue.
Also, minor issue, but I would like to file a complaint against the nicknames. Sass and Brains did not do it for me.
I had a glorious time with this 😌 Adriana Herrera has fed me once more and not pissed me off with the male love interest 😂 I’m always walking on a tight rope when it comes to how she writes her male leads.
For the sake of full transparency, this is a novella that’s only about 140pgs long. I was impressed by the amount of world building and the ambiance created in such few pages, but it was far from a perfect novella. At the end of the day, it’s trying to be both spicy and create a world that feels lived in, and so it’s imperfect at times when trying to accomplish this. The main area this was noticeable in was the pacing. These characters truly went from not having seen each other in years to professing their undying love to each other in the span of like 2 days 😂
At the end of the day, I didn’t mind it. I found the world Herrera built intriguing and the characters compelling. I was drawn in to Alma, Candela, and Torch and the chemistry between them. I easily rooted for them and wanted them to get together.
I was only left wishing this was a little bit longer because I found this post apocalyptic world so interesting, and I wanted the opportunity to follow the characters as they set out to fulfill what seemed only logical to do (aka free the people in the bunker).
Still, I have no real complaints with this. It’s a success in my book ✨
Después de un acontecimiento catastrófico, los habitantes de un búnker siguen con sus vidas, pero la sociedad no es idílica. Alma ha perdido a toda su familia pero sigue dedicando su vida a ayudar a los que lo necesitan a pesar de tener que romper algunas reglas. Cuando la descubren, la sentencian a la pena máxima, expulsarla del búnker. Pero al salir se da cuenta que las cosas no son como se las habían contado y lo engañados que tienen a los habitantes del búnker.
La historia en sí no me ha parecido nada original. Es otra historia postapocalíptica más relacionada con supervivientes en un búnker (Fallout, El búnker o El refugio atómico tienen tramas similares). Pero es cortita y está entretenida. Sin más.