From my TBR shelf...

 

Home With the Dead by PJ Dziekan

I like zombie apocalypse books, and I bought this one after reading Dziekan's first book, Walking With the Dead. It continues the story of Sarah and Mick, Ryan and Becca and the others. Zombies are still a threat, but so are other humans. And finding enough food and other needed supplies in order to stay alive is becoming a problem. To add to their worries, Sarah just found out she's pregnant.

This novel is action-packed and edge-of-your-seat suspenseful. Sarah, as the leader of their group, is strong, independent, stubborn, and tough. I like her a lot; and I love her relationship with Mick. There's a lot of language and zombie gore in this one, but there's also friendship, family, loyalty, survival, and hope. If you like a good zombie read, this is an entertaining one. (Though you should probably read Walking With the Dead first.)

Happy Reading!

P.S. This book counts towards the Backlist Reader Challenge hosted by The Bookwyrm's Hoard.

The Zombie Apocalypse Call Center by Taylor Ellwood

 

"Hello, this is Sam with Zombii Co. May I ask who I'm speaking with please?"  It's 7 a.m. and I've just started my shift at the Zombie Apocalypse Call Center, run by Zombii Co. ... We sell people on the idea of the Zombie Apocalypse, but as I've learned since I started working here, no one really believes it.

Zombii Co. sells Silver, Gold and Platinum plans to help their customers survive a zombie apocalypse. The plans include guns, ammo, Zombii Spray, and a support center to answer all their calls and questions. That's Sam's job. And even though he has a micro-managing boss who's always on his case, and he doesn't believe a zombie apocalypse will ever actually happen, he's pretty good at his job. Until people start calling in about being attacked by actual zombies. Sam doesn't know what to think. But it's soon apparent that Zombii Spray doesn't work like it's supposed to, guns aren't always enough, and people are dying. Sam just wants to go home to check in on his mom and sister, but it's written into his contract that he can't leave his job during an actual zombie apocalypse, although he might have to leave his computer to help defend the call center. Until then...

I take a few deep breaths and put myself back into ready. When you're call support you have to find a way to put aside the emotions of the moment and focus on the problem. And the problem today is a Zombie Apocalypse that needs to be stopped.

The beginning of this book, with all the calls Sam has to deal with, is hilarious! You can tell the author once worked at a call center himself. All those people calling and asking Sam for Zombie help totally made me laugh, as did the stupid rules he has to follow. The rest of the book isn't quite as good, and there are some slow parts in the middle, but overall I thought this was an entertaining read. And if you like lots of zombie fighting, this book has plenty of it. Sam is an ordinary guy who messes up and makes mistakes, but who tries to do the right thing even when the people around him make it really hard. I liked him. And I loved when he finally stood up to his boss, and how tough he got by the end. Go Sam! I'm not sure I'll read the sequel, but I did really enjoy this one. 

Happy Reading!

 

Still reading from my own shelves....

Title & Author:  Walking With the Dead by P.J. Dziekan

Why I bought it:  I was in the mood for a zombie apocalypse book sometime last year, and my library didn't have this one, so I bought it. (And then ended up not reading it until now.)

First line:  Sarah missed the end of the world because of the flu.

The plot in brief:  A bunch of strangers band together in order to survive the swarms of the undead:  college student, Sarah, brothers Ryan and Mick, Becca, and six-year-old Elizabeth.

My thoughts:  This is a pretty decent zombie read. It's a little predictable. And there are a few flaws here and there, but overall I thought it was entertaining and fun. Some of the flaws? The dialogue felt a little stilted in a few places, but just at the beginning. And Ryan, Becca and Sarah all overreacted at times in ways that didn't feel authentic (which a little more initial character development would have easily solved). And towards the end of the book the band of survivors just happen to find an undisturbed food distribution center with boxes and boxes of food...which felt a little too convenient, if you know what I mean. Oh, and there are too many f-bombs in the first chapter. But there are good things, too. The prose reads well. The characters grow and get more likable over the course of the book. It's fast-paced and never bogs down. I liked Mick right from the start. I also liked the way the characters worked together to survive, and how each one had their own strengths and weaknesses. Plus, there are zombies. All in all, I ended up liking this one enough to want to buy the sequel, Home With the Dead, sometime in the near future. Although my library MIGHT open up for curbside checkouts next week, so I might not need to keep buying new books. (Fingers crossed!)

My rating:  3.5/5 stars.

Happy Reading!

From my TBR shelf...

Title & Author:  Haven by Laury Falter

Why I bought it:  Have I mentioned how much I like disaster/survival novels? Including zombie apocalypse ones? Which is why I couldn't resist buying this particular book.

The premise:  Kennedy's at her high school when the zombie apocalypse beings. Only she and four other teens--Doc, Beverly, Mei and Harrison--manage to make it safely inside. At least Kennedy has some survival skills courtesy of her military father to help them survive. But the odds are against them. Then there's Harrison, who has a secret of his own. One that could affect ... or infect .... them all.

My thoughts:  I'd classify this YA novel as "survival lite". While there are several intense encounters with the Infected, the author spends more time focusing on Kennedy and Harrison, and their respective pasts and growing relationship. Which I actually didn't mind because I liked both of them. But it did lessen the suspense of whether or not they were going to survive. And Harrison's big secret was pretty obvious and easy to figure out. So no real tension there either. And being in the high school with food and shelter and safety meant the five teens' survival felt pretty easy at times. Despite these few flaws, I still enjoyed this one. It's well-written, and it reads fast, and it's also entertaining and fun. Will I read the sequel? Probably not. But I'm not sorry I read this one.

My rating:  3/5 stars.

Happy Reading!

P.S. This  one also counts as another book towards my Backlist Reader Challenge 2019 goal, a fun reading challenge that focuses on reading the books on your TBR shelf and on your TBR list. 

Similar read:
Virulent: The Release by Shelbi Wescott

Two quirky books from my TBR shelf...

In The Undead World of Oz, Ryan C. Thomas takes L. Frank Baum's classic children's story and gives it a fun zombie twist. Because of an evil curse by the Wicked Witch of the West, the undead of Oz have risen and they want brains. Dorothy, Toto, the Scarecrow, the Tin Woodman and the Cowardl yLion must fight off the undead as they journey down the yellow brick road to see the Great and Terrible Wizard of Oz.

I grew up loving L. Frank Baum's Oz books, which is why I couldn't resist buying this slightly twisted version. It's a little dark, has some humorous moments, and lots of flying body parts, and it made me smile and shake my head at the same time. Zombies and Oz really don't go together, but somehow in this quirky, crazy read Thomas makes it work.

It's a great cover, isn't it? I spotted it at a library discard sale and couldn't resist buying it. In The Doctor and the Dinosaurs, Mike Resnick combines an eclectic cast of historical figures. It begins with Geronimo, who enlists the help of a dying Doc Holliday to stop the two most famous fossil hunters in the world from doing their digging in the sacred burial ground of the Commanche. If he doesn't, the Commanche medicine men are going to raise a real dinosaur or two to take care of the problem themselves. Teddy Roosevelt joins Doc Holliday in his quest, and Thomas Edison provides the firepower.

It's a fun premise, but there was too much talking and not enough action for me. Plus, it took way too long for the dinosaurs to appear; and there should have been a lot more of them. I mean, I was promised dinosaurs! But I felt like they never even showed up. I did really like Doc Holliday, though. And since I only paid 50 cents for this book, I'd still say it was money well spent. Best of all? That's two books on longer sitting on my TBR pile making me feel guilty.

So, there you are, the two quirkiest books from my TBR shelf. Now that I've finally read them, the only question left is what book from my TBR shelf should I read next. What about you? What quirky gems are hiding in your TBR piles?

Happy Reading!

Red Hill

"With all the television shows, comics, books, and movies about the undead, it shouldn't have been a surprise that somebody was finally both smart and crazy enough to try and make it a reality. I know the world ended on a Friday. It was the last day I saw my children."

Scarlet, a single mom, is at work at the hospital when it all begins; her two daughters are with her ex-husband. Now all she can think about is finding her daughters and getting them to safety at Red Hill Ranch.

"I couldn't do this if I wasn't with them. I needed to see Jenna roll her eyes at me again, and for Halle to interrupt me. They needed me to tell them that everything would be okay. We couldn't survive the end of the world without each other. I didn't want to."

Miranda and her sister, Ashley (and their two boyfriends) are also trying to get to Red Hill Ranch. It's their father's country house and a beckoning sanctuary from all the chaos and violence surrounding them. But they're miles away, and the roads are clogged with cars, terrified people...and zombies.

"We passed more people, unsure of who was running and who was chasing. A couple of times people screamed at me to stop, begged me to help them, but stopping always meant dying in the movies, and I was barely eighteen. I wasn't sure how long we would survive, but I knew I wasn't dying on day one of the f**king zombie apocalypse."

Nathan's wife chose this day of all days to leave him. Now it's up to him to keep his young daughter, Zoe, safe. But how is he supposed to do that when nothing in the world is safe, or even sane, any more?

"Watching a movie about zombies is one thing. Watching zombies outside your windows was another. The movies didn't talk about that...how terrifying each moment truly was. I tried not to think about tomorrow, or that we would still be fighting for our lives every day from now on. I glanced back at Zoe, and choked back the sadness welling up in my throat. I didn't want her to grow up in a world like this."

Page-turning action and suspense, along with some pretty good characters, make this novel by Jamie McGuire a better-than-average zombie read. I was rooting for the whole group to survive. (Never a realistic hope in any zombie novel; someone you like always dies!) The first half reads the best; the story slows a bit towards the end, especially in regards to Scarlett and her daughters. Overall, though this novel offers lots of tension and violence, smart survival, sad deaths, humor, friendship and hope.

Happy Reading! 

Another zombie read...

"Twenty-two days. Michael lifted his finger from the Sharpie'd tally in his journal. Wow. Man. Twenty-two days since Halloween. Twenty-two days since Michael followed the Game Master's instructions and carried Patrick through a door into the night and saw their first Bellow. Twenty-two days since that moment, since the world seemed to end, but then instantaneously resurrected to a frightening and beautiful life."

T. Michael Martin's The End Games is a novel about zombies (called Bellows here) and surviving the end of the world. It is also a novel about love and loyalty between two brothers. Because seventeen-year-old Michael Faris will do anything to protect his little brother, Patrick. Even invent a Game involving the Bellows and earning points and following a mysterious Game Master's instructions until they reach the Safe Zone in Charleston, West Virginia, where they hope to find their mom. And five-year-old Patrick, who suffers from extreme anxiety, believes and plays along. Because Michael is his hero. But it's not just the undead that they have to worry about. There's the crazy cult of religious fanatics in Coaltown, and the army soldier in Charleston who promises to protect them. The one thing Michael knows for sure is that he has to keep his little brother safe.

"Because Patrick ... looked so small, so sweet, that Michael thought, not for the first or final time, that he would shoot all the monsters in the world he had to, he would do anything to reach the Safe Zone in the capital city of Charleston, to win the Game for Patrick."

There are a lot of mediocre and disappointing zombie reads out there, but this is one of the good ones. I liked Martin's style of writing and his take on the undead is different and fun. But his main focus is on his characters. I may not have liked all of them, but I did really like Michael. And as I learned more about his and Patrick's back story, I liked him even more. This entertaining apocalyptic novel ended up being a perfect end-of-summer read for me.

Happy Reading!

Other good zombie reads:

Devil's Wake

Positive 

Feed
Apocalypse Z: The Beginning of the End
World War Z

An A+ Read...

"Apparently, even after the end of the world, friendship still counts for something."

David Wellington writes quite the story in Positive. His main character, Finn, wasn't even born when the zombie plague killed 99% of the population. He's part of the second generation, growing up in a safe Manhattan where there are no zombies. He goes crabbing in the flooded subway tunnels with his friend, Ike, and takes his turn working in the rooftop gardens. But then his mother goes zombie, and nineteen-year-old Finn is presumed to be infected, too. Marked as a "positive", Finn is banished from the city. He's supposed to be taken to a safe medical center in Ohio to wait out the incubation period, but his ride never shows up. Instead, he's on his own in a post-apocalpytic America with the looters, the crazy road pirates, death cultists and murderous marauders. Oh, and the zombies.

There are a lot of firsts for Finn in this novel:  the first time he's forced to survive on his own; the first time he drives a car; the first time he shoots a gun; and the first time he falls in love with a girl. Positive really is a coming-of-age story set in a zombie world. It's fast-paced, compelling, and very character-driven. I liked Finn and all the other quirky characters he meets along the way, both good and bad. Finn has to grow up fast, but he does it well; I admired him more with each hard decision he had to make. Other good things about this book:  the writing, Wellington's well-developed dystopian future, Kylie, Finn's scarred and traumatized girlfriend who is also a survivor like him, and Finn's unwavering optimism. He believes things can get better. And I liked that. This novel has humor. And action. And suspense. And hope. It's a good read; all 437 pages of it.

Happy Reading!

Going Viral ...

"Something is happening in Russia. Something huge .... According to the Ministry of Health, we've reached the 'breaking point' in an epidemic, and a pandemic is now inevitable. It should hit Spain in a matter of days, if it's not here already. It happened so fast--just two weeks since it started .... The strangest part is the official secrecy surrounding the disease. No symptoms have been made public; neither has its incubation period, or how many people have died. Nothing. All we know is that it's highly contagious, it's very lethal, and its spreading .... News of the plague has been reported from every corner of the planet. The epidemic is now global."

I know half of you will probably stop reading this review when you come to the word 'zombie'. And that's okay. Zombie apocalypse novels are not everyone's cup of tea. But I like them. And Apocalypse Z: The Beginning of the End by Manel Loureiro is better than most. It takes place in Spain. The main character, like the author, is a lawyer who lives and works in Galicia. He has a cat named Lucullus. And he narrates his story, and the end of the world, in a series of blog posts, which become journal entries when the power and internet go out. Before this crises, 'zombie' wasn't even part of his vocabulary; I mean, the man doesn't even know how to use a gun. But he's going to have to learn if he wants to survive. As the only living human among an endless zombie hoard, it's going to take everything he's got just to stay alive.

"I'd just learned an important lesson. The undead weren't the only things that could kill me. Accidents, disease, hunger--all the normal causes of death--were just lurking in the shadows, waiting for their chance. If I weren't careful, they'd catch me. I'd only been thinking about my stalkers. I'd forgotten something very basic: man is a fragile being."

My one problem with this book is all the f-bombs in it; I could have done without ALL of those, but other than that I liked this novel. I liked the pacing, the narration, and the rapidly devolving world. And I liked Lucullus, his cat. It's another zombie apocalypse at its terrifying best (or worst).

Happy Reading! 

Other great zombie reads:

     World War Z by Max Brooks

     Autumn by David Moody

     Devil's Wake by Steven Barnes and Tananarive Due

     This Is Not a Test by Courtney Summers

     Zombie Haiku by Ryan Mecum

     Feed by Mira Grant

     Married With Zombies by Jesse Petersen

Just finished...

Title:  Feed
Author:  Mira Grant
How it begins:  Our story opens where countless stories have ended in the last twenty-six years: with an idiot--in this case, my brother Shaun--deciding it would be a good idea to go out and poke a zombie with a stick to see what happens. As if we didn't already know what happens when you mess with a zombie: The zombie turns around and bites you, and you become the thing you poked.

The premise:  It's 2039. Everyone has been infected with the Kellis-Amberlee virus which turns the dead into the hungry undead. Dealing with zombies and outbreaks, contaminated zones, and the constant threat of infection has become a way of life. But the point is that life goes on. Three young bloggers, Georgia Mason, her brother, Shaun, and their friend, Buffy, have been chosen to cover Senator Peter Ryman's presidential campaign. They each have different blogging strengths:  Buffy is a techie who writes fiction, Shaun craves danger and adventure and loves to detail his zombie encounters, and Georgia, a "newsie", is interested in facts and telling the truth. Whatever the truth may be. Even if it means revealing a dangerous conspiracy that could change everything.

My thoughts:  I almost didn't read this book--not only does it have 571 pages, it's the first book in a trilogy--but in the end I couldn't resist giving it a try. And I'm glad I did. This novel chronicles a political campaign and the power of social media all against the backdrop of a futuristic dystopian society that happens to include zombies. There's action, and intrigue. And some great characters. I especially liked the banter between Georgia and her brother, and the unbreakable bond they share. Grant even includes some of their blog posts, which I thought was fun. I also liked Grant's science. Overall, this is one of the better zombie books that I've read; I'm looking forward to checking out the second book in this series.

Happy Reading!

It's April...

...which means it is also National Poetry Month. To honor the occasion, I decided to read a poem or two and post them here, but then I saw this particular book of poetry and I just couldn't resist:

Zombie Haiku by Ryan Mecum

What does a poet do when he turns into a zombie? He chronicles his descent into mindless flesh-eating hunger with a series of clever and funny (and sometimes disgusting) haiku. Talk about creative! This 139-page book is hilarious, and I loved it! Here are a few of my favorite zombie haiku:

My town is broken.

From this view, I see the end.

Below, they gather.

There's nothing quite like

the pain you feel while dying--

switching to hunger.

I keep saying "brains".

I remember other words,

but I just need one.

Happy Reading!

Married With Zombies

"I never would have guessed that killing zombies would save my relationship."

Sarah and David's marriage is in trouble, but then Dr. Kelly, their marriage counselor, tries to eat them and their relationship problems suddenly seem small compared to the zombie infection rapidly spreading throughout the city. If they want to survive, they'll have to stick together.

Who knew a book about a zombie apocalypse could be so funny? Or that in the middle of bashing in zombie brains, two people could reconnect and fall back in love? There's a lot of bad zombie fiction out there, but this book made me laugh. Even the chapter headings--a clever mash-up of relationship and zombie-survival advice--are funny. One of my favorites? Put the small stuff into perspective. It's better to be wrong and alive than right but eating brains.  Here's another good one: Build mutual friendships. Just be ready to end them when your friends start trying to eat you.  I also liked Sarah' narrative voice; she's a great character:  sassy, smart, and surprisingly good with a shotgun. And she's got her husband's back, even if he forgets and leaves the toilet seat up. Married with Zombies by Jesse Petersen is a fast, fun read. I really enjoyed it. (Just try to overlook her overuse of the f-word.)

Happy Reading!

Devil's Wake

Don't let them bite you!

Wear thick clothing.

Avoid exposing your skin.

Take drastic measures if necessary.

And if you are bitten...don't go to sleep!

No one knows what caused the outbreak; no one knows how to cure it, only that it's spreading fast--infecting thousands, leaving chaos, fear, and death in its wake. In order to survive, six teens will have to band together. They have an old school bus and a little bit of food, but can they make it past the freaks and monsters to safety without becoming infected themselves?

"We're on our way to Threadville. And if that doesn't work, maybe to Devil's Wake. We're trying to believe in something, but some of us believe more than others. I don't know what I believe yet, or if believing matters. Maybe there are no schools, no safety, no such thing as family anymore. All I know is that I want to survive."

So how do you stay alive as civilization dies and the world around you falls apart? And what would you be willing to do in order to survive? That's always the question in stories like this one. Life and death situations seem to bring out the best...and worst in people. And it's that exploration of the human spirit that draws me to these kind of apocalyptic novels. That and the fact that they're fast-paced and fun to read.

I admit that not every disaster/survival novel is worth reading. In fact, a lot of them are poorly written and downright dumb. But I enjoyed this one. It's very readable and I liked the characters, especially 16-year-old Kendra, who loses her family to the infection and has to survive on her own until she crosses paths with Terry and his friends. I'm looking forward to reading the sequel, Domino Falls. So if you like reading about apocalyptic disasters, check this book out. It's a fun ride.

Happy Reading!

Similar reads:

     Trapped by Michael Northrop

     World War Z by Max Brooks