I read this series when I was younger, and came back to try it again as an adult. I gave some leniency in the review to account for the fact that I am much older now, and out of the target audience, but despite that, a few things stood out that I recall even bothering me back when I read it the first time.

To start off, the concept and setting drew me right in. To avoid spoiling anything, it jumped right into the action, and was hard to put down at first. That as well as the diverse and opinionated cast of characters kept things lively, I found the characters quite memorable. Who was going to end up where? Who would change to adapt, or who would stubbornly cling to the old? It's explored well, and I enjoyed that.

However, a few things made this a hard read in spite of that. The biggest culprit being the overuse of nicknames for human objects (or even non-human objects, like night time). In another other Erin Hunter title, Warriors, it is used sparingly, and at least integrated well enough for my eyes to skim over it, but in Survivors it is distractingly excessive. No-sun, longpaws, ect. While these sorts of names are a staple of the genre, there’s a few reasons it didn’t work in Survivors. Starting with the inconsistency. One instance that sticks out is a scene where a staircase is described as something our protagonist doesn't know the name for (though the exact name he used escapes me). Later in the novel the stairs become simply "a flight of stairs". Could the first have been an escalator? Sure, but why wouldn't he rationalize it as a staircase anyways, if it wasn't moving? This might seem nitpicky, but it occurs frequently enough to break immersion. There are too many object nicknames for even the authors to keep it straight. There is also inconsistency in knowledge. In Warriors it made sense to use strange nicknames for human made objects, because the characters were cats who lived in the forest their entire lives. There are even instances where cats who do live in homes explain proper terminology for those objects. Survivors? Not so much. You'd think Lucky, a dog who's supposedly lived on the streets, would know what more things are. So why does Sweet have to explain what a raccoon is? Why does he know what plastic is, but not glass? Why is a cap a cap and a glove a glove, but a purse is a "strange leather bag". There are aspects of his story that can tentatively excuse some of it, but his lack of knowledge does not add to the story, it only makes it annoying to push through.

Wrapping it up with my other big gripe: the prose and descriptions. It was passable, but only just. One instance sticks out where I had to reread a section several times over to make sure I didn't miss anything, because it was so scarcely explained I could barely picture the place. The scarce descriptions paired with the overuse of nicknames grated on me as I got near the end, hence my rating. In summary: the characters, plot, and ideas were great, but the execution let me down. I wanted to like this one, and I so badly wished I could give it a better review. Even for a book geared toward a younger audience, it would have benefitted massively from refinement to the writing style.