FYA Book Club of Charm City discussion

I already stated in my comment about Slide that I am from Iowa. I am from Eastern Iowa but I did live in Charles City, Iowa (a town of about 7-8K). It's about an hour northeast of Waterloo/Cedar Falls. Ealing is fictional, but I couldn't help but picture it as Charles City. The economy is kind of falling apart there, like Ealing. They have a lot of manufacturing and I think there was an animal lab company too.
I think that because I could picture the setting so vividly the book impacted me a lot more than if it had been set somewhere else. Also, I totally buy that a teenage boy thinks a lot about sex.
I'm glad that we read Slide to kind of balance this book out. I read this book first and was prepared to convince everyone that Iowans didn't walk around saying crap like Humdinger all the time. I know that Ealing and Iowa City are very different settings, but I want to stress to you that people who live out in the country are NOT all like what Smith depicted. I felt like everyone was kind of a buffoon.
I was pretty much at war with myself while reading this book. I would get really into the plot and then all of a sudden Smith would write something like Iowa is blue plaid boxers and I would have a slight rage stroke.
I really appreciated the love triangle in the book. It was unconventional and I liked the way that Austin didn't immediately go, oh I'm gay or bisexual or whatever.
I liked the ending of the story although I kind of wonder what happened to the rest of the world. I get that North America was pretty much screwed. Although I do wonder about Alaska or the really really cold places since it looks like the bug soldiers went south for the winter. But what about the other continents? What about Australia? Was there some piece of info where the bugs couldn't swim? And they seemed pretty stupid so I don't think they could have managed to cross any bodies of water.
Do you guys have any thoughts?