Review: Decent story, but some parts underdeveloped
Rating: 3 out of 5
Date: 02 15, 2014
I received a free copy from the author in exchange for an honest review.The storyline itself offered nothing particularly fresh to genre, but it was not predictable or stale. Nothing earth-shattering, but nothing too formulated, either. It didn't try too hard to be gorier and scarier than the rest of the zombie books out there, yet it still hit the mark for a decent zombie read with all the gore and frights a reader might expect. The writing style was easy and flowed well, and the author's sense of humor shone through in little quips here and there. One of my faves was, "Even after the end of the world, women still can't seem to leave on time." I adore a little snark and humor thrown into the mix. John, the main character, tended to nickname the individual zombies he ran across, and that gave me a few chuckles.The author did a great job of exploring the human side of the zombie apocalypse, as in how it could change the fundamental core of a person. More so than most books in the genre I've read, this story touched upon the struggle between doing what needed to be done in the new world to survive and not losing one's self to the primal darkness completely. Sometimes other survivors were exactly what they seemed, and sometimes they weren't. John's struggles to make the right choices when dealing with other survivors added a lot of humanity to the story. His emotional reactions to both child zombies, and first responders who had been turned, were very believable and heart-felt. The author excelled at giving the reader a look into the psychological horror of seeing the young and the 'saviors' of society alike turned into horrible, flesh-eating monsters. His inner struggles to cope with these issues added a layer of horror to the story that so many others lack.There weren't a lot of weapons details in this book, which worked for me. Knowlegeable gun-lovers may detest the lack of specific information about various models or calibers of the guns involved, but as a casual reader, I appreciated that the author didn't overload me with too much information about them. I hate it when an otherwise good tale turns into a weapons lesson by taking the details too far. I didn't find that here.The evolution of John and Claire's relationship was confusing at points. As they worked to discover their roles in their relationship as a team, there seemed to be a lot of flip-flopping and mixed signals. They figured it out eventually, but for a few chapters, I found it all highly annoying. Claire developed a nickname for John that was overused, ad naseum. As the book continued on, he began treating her more and more like a child, mostly in some of the things he said to her, and the paternal bit didn't work for me, given where their relationship ended up. I liked both characters well enough, but sometimes their evolving partnership didn't feel 'true' to me.There were some great twists, but I found them to be grossly underdeveloped. Some of the zombies began to evolve, but there were only hints of how and what it might mean for the future of the survivors. There was great opportunity to take that idea and run with it, to really fold it into the story, but instead, it was kind of...dropped. Forgotten, dismissed. It was highly disappointing to see some great ideas hinted at but never really followed through. This could have been a better read if those ideas had been explored further. The last run-in with that type of zombie felt rushed and half-done, as the reader's expected to swallow behavior on the zombies' part that really didn't make sense, based on their previous behavior.While the editing was by no means terrible, quite a few minor errors were overlooked. There were numerous missing periods and incorrect words (off/of, you're/your, that type of thing). It was frequent enough to be mildly distracting. The bigger problem was the 'tense flipping' throughout the book. While it was generally presented in the past tense, all too often it flipped into the present tense for just a sentence of two before reverting back to the past tense again. It wasn't as terrible as it might have been. Never did I question if I wanted to read on or not because of it, but it interrupted the flow at many points as my brain shifted gears to assimilate to the sudden change. For example: "I had on tan cargo pants, a black long-sleeved shirt, and my black boots. The pants are tucked into the boots." It didn't ruin the read for me, but it surely detracted from it. It was not a nightmare to read due to the editing errors, but it would have been far better without them.In general, I enjoyed this one. There's nothing that made it stand out from the hordes of similar zombie books, but it was a decent read that's worth a look if you've no 'pririoty' reads you're dying to get to.To see more of my zombie book reviews, please check out my profile.