Review: Christian Novel with very heavy religious overtones
Rating: 1 out of 5
Date: 03 3, 2012
The book opens in a walled compound where a large group of survivors clearly locked themselves away at some point after a Zombie apocalypse. Over time they've founded a community and religion, one which supports a strict hierarchy (and not very strict morals) and which reveres the creatures outside the walls as Gods, people chosen to be proffered immortality.The community can only hold a specific number of people, so when a child reaches a certain age, a lottery is held where those of (an undetermined age) and above are selected to leave the compound to make space for the new arrival and become Gods themselves, a great honour according to the community.****SPOILERS START****At the start of the book, the protagonist is having an affair with the community's religious figurehead, as her husband has forsaken sexual activity for his books (he being the curator of a library). When she is "caught out" by her mother in law, who initially appears to be some sort of Empath, she decides to end the affair. In retaliation, he lover punishes her by rigging the lottery and calling her young child's name, afterwards making sure our protagonist knows the lottery was rigged.This and information from her mother in law leads her to question whether the people outside are truly Gods, then take her children and escape the compound leaving her husband behind. Outside the gates, they are saved from the Gods/Zombies by a group of human traders. These human traders, exchange people for canned food with a city tribe (who of course feed on the exchanged humans).While this is happening, the husband and lover are sent to retrieve the protagonist in order to redeem themselves for the embarrassment and unrest she has caused. Much action ensues and her husband learns the error of his ways.Once reunited, they return to the compound to they find they have been followed by the human traders. Again more action ensues.At the end, guided by the mother in law, they finally find the religion they followed was a lie. Not only this, they discover the answer was there the whole time as the old woman had tried to show them from the very start ... They have with them the Bible, (which the husband had carried with him from the Library)  to which they can now look for the truth, beginning a new religion for these people.****SPOILERS END****Poorly thought out timelines, predictability and massive plot holes aside, I found the arrogant, preachy tone of this book overwhelming.This book reminds me of a poor man's Book of Eli (which I enjoyed immensely), however Book of Eli was written with acceptance and without prejudice, as have other religious based Zombie books  and horror novels in general which have had a religious background. I've read and enjoyed many.In this case the author clearly set the story up from the beginning to send the message that all other religions and peoples that don't follow the true word are dumb, heathen and false, lending to the air of arrogance I felt throughout the novel and my inability to look past the religious tone of the book.There's no potential for irony in the ending, it was clearly the author using the opportunity to preach the "true word". Had it been labelled in any way as a Christian novel (it still isn't BTW), I would either have avoided it, or understood that I'd chosen to read it and been less offended. Instead, I felt the author's opinions were being forced on me. In fact, there is one ironic point; the author's arrogant point of view is exactly the kind that would have originally started this gated community in the first place.UPDATE: Spoiler tags added per reader's comment. Also after months the description of the book now hints a little towards religious theme, however it still doesn't lead the reader to understand this is a heavily Christian oriented novel.