Our book club had a huge fight over whether the main character was actually a hero or not

Troy, I gotta push back a little on that gas station scene, because I think it says more about Lauren than people give her credit for. She had maybe two minutes to make a call while the guys with guns were closing in, and Harry was already frozen in place, basically begging to get caught. A real leader would have dragged them along and gotten everyone killed, you know? She was the only one who understood that hesitation meant death in that world, and her job was to keep the larger group alive, not just the people who couldn't keep up. I think calling it cold misses how desperate her situation was, she wasn't being selfish, she was making the hard call that nobody else had the guts to make.