OK but not what I was looking for

This is admittedly a very subjective review. I'm nevertheless writing it, in case somebody with a similar taste like me comes across it and finds it useful. I could have used something like that.

I'm a huge fan of zombie stories, but I am also picky and a purist. I want it to be about the zombies. That sounds trivial and obvious, but it isn't. Unfortunately for me, the vast majority of zombie stories switches rather quickly from focusing on the zombie threat to being all about human villains and how "humans are the real monsters" and all that.

That immediately makes me lose interest.
As I said, I want zombie stories to be about the zombies. If I wanted to read books (or watch movies) about evil biker gangs and tyrannical despots forming fiefdoms and waging war on other people, I could get that from other genres and sub-genres.

Another thing I want is immersion and for that I want my zombie stories to be about regular, relatable characters, who are confronted with the end of their normal life and have to use their wits and whatever resources they can scrounge up to survive the mayhem of a zombie apocalypse.
Stories that play a long time after the apocalypse, where all the characters are seasoned survivalists and zombie killers and the zombies have become part of the environment everyone learned to live with, like bad weather, are totally unappealing to me.
That is not the case here. The story starts with the apocalypse, but it does very quickly shift into the usual "humans are the real problem" sub-genre, if I can call it that.
That was very disappointing to me and means I wasted my monthly Audible token on it.

I specifically chose this audio book because the "blog" gimmick gave me hope that this might be one of the zombie stories that sticks with being about the zombies for a longer time. Normally the "diary" style that is told from the perspective of one character from the beginning to the end, lends itself to going into great detail and luxuriate in describing the lead up and the first hours and days of the apocalypse, which I love.

This one doesn't.
It is very abrupt and bare bones in that regard.

That makes it pretty much useless to me and I did not enjoy it.
To be honest, in order to be able to write this review, I cheated and had the audio book run on mute in the background, because I only made it 3 or 4 chapters in.

If I remember correctly, the main character even at some point says: "The zombies were the least of their problems." and that is something I really don't want to hear in a zombie novel, you know what I mean?

The reason why I still gave it 3 stars out of 5, is that I am aware how subjective that opinion is and that people who don't feel like me might still enjoy the book. Objectively it isn't badly written and I didn't find any glaring flaws outside of it not catering to my personal preferences.
I did however rate the story itself harsher with 2 stars, because it undeniably is rather generic. At least in the part I did listen to, there was nothing that I hadn't found in any other zombie novel, nothing surprising, nothing standing out. Yes, there might be some surprising twist later in the book, but the way it was written really didn't make that seem likely.

Even ignoring my personal issues with it, it still felt rather "drawing by numbers" to me, if you know what I mean.

After having gotten a taste of the first book, I must say I find it kind of bewildering to know that this grew into a whole series, because the "blog" gimmick kind of seems to fall by the wayside pretty quickly in this one. The author almost seems to forget that this is supposed to be a blog or a diary or a journal of sorts. He doesn't even pepper any "I couldn't write yesterday, because...." type of allusions to the journal format in there. It just becomes a regular story told by a single narrator after the first chapter or so,

Since I specifically wrote this review as a service to others who feel like me, I should add a recommendation.
If you want a diary style zombie novel which, while ultimately still including human villains, still stays focused on the zombie threat throughout and includes a outright luxurious and masterfully crafted build up to the apocalypse, I recommend "Apocalypse Z" by Manel Loureiro.

I'm just used to my zombie stories taking place in the USA, so one that plays in Spain was a bit less appealing to me, to be honest, but I think it has the best build up and start of the apocalypse to any zombie novel I ever read or listened to.
The author describes in detail how his main character witnesses and experiences the first slow, then accelerating deterioration of civilization around him, how he is still able to travel within Spain, surrounded by panicked people, while one country after the other is going dark, the news getting more sparse and scary every day, martial law being implemented and eventually the first zombies showing up in his home town.

It feels very realistic and plausible and that makes it immersive and engaging and thus way better than the vast majority of stories in this genre.
If I could talk to TW Brown, I would tell him: "See, this is how you do a journal style zombie novel."

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