As the title suggests the third entry in the Remaining series “The Remaining Refugees,” this title is centered around the personalities and politics of the survivors that Captain Lee Harden has gathered together. This book is a story of betrayal and suspense which is what makes portions of the book a great read, but it also introduces an interesting couple of new plot devices that honestly have me sitting with mixed feeling about the book by the end.

Do you know the feeling when you’re watching a show or a movie, and you have the backseat driver thought “they wouldn’t do that”? There are a few critical points of the story where I felt Harden put himself in an uncharacteristically vulnerable position.

There is also a new twist with the infected which has been hinted at since the beginning of the series. With the evolution of the disease and the infected showing the ability to adapt, this leads us to finding that the infected can become pregnant. Which makes sense in this universe considering the infected are beasts created through a bacteria, and they are people who never technically died. So their brains function, just on a lower level, and there’s no real reason to believe their reproductive organs wouldn’t as well.

My gripes with the book aren’t a deal breaker for the series, and I may just be judging it more harshly because of how much I enjoyed the first two books. I’ll still be reading the fourth book “The Remaining Fractured” with optimism that these weren’t bad directions to take the series in, as of now I’m just unsure.

The way the author depicts the post apocalyptic Camp Ryder lifestyle, the survivor struggles, the looming massive horde of infected on the horizon, and the mythical murderous “Followers,” are all great aspects of this book and make it worth a read, but I can’t say that Refugees was my favorite entry to the series.

6/10