Date started: October 12, 2017
Date ended: October 16, 2017
Stars: ★★
This. Book. Was. Not. For. Me.
I honestly tried with this book. I first want to state that Courtney Summers is a very good author. She deals with the hard issues but always does it in an eloquent gritty way. So I don’t want my review, in anyway, to sway people from reading her books. One thing that niggles me, is that most of her novels either deal with rape or suicide, or both. So, when I saw she had written a zombie novel I was like alright I’ll go back and try it.
I was not impressed.
Like I said before, the synopsis sounded good. Six teens trapped in a high school during the zombie apocalypse slowly becoming more of a danger to themselves then what waits outside. I sort of imagined a plot similar to Lord of the Flies, where the teens basic survival skills would drive them insane. In short, the group of teen survivors would be a more dangerous enemy than any zombie could be.
But what I got was a group of teens bitching, whining, wandering around, showering, crying, etc. The whole story line was extremely tedious that I wanted to pull my hair out. The main character who is the narrator, Sloane, is very obnoxious and suicidal. This will sound harsh but I couldn’t find anything likable about her. I really didn’t care if she lived or not, because she didn’t!! I don’t want a heroine like that. I know it’s the harsh reality sometimes but I don’t want that in my novels. Which is why I started this review saying it wasn’t for me. She spends 95 percent of the book just wanting to die and it got old. Maybe that adds a new and unique dimension but I wasn’t about it. Also, if I had to hear about her sister abandoning her one more time …
I think the one word I would use for the book would be: redundant. The plot and even the conversations between characters were just repetitive.
The plot:
- I walked down the hall
- I went back to the auditorium
- I went to the gym
- I went to the gym
GREAT NOW DO SOMETHING!
The conversations:
- “You killed our parents”
- “No, I didn’t!”
- “Your fault”
- “Murderer”
- “It should’ve been you”
- “It’s not!”
JUST STOPPPPPPP.
Also disappointing, Courtney Summers … out of all the names in the entire world please don’t ever name twins, Grace and Trace … I don’t care if you’re trying to be coy but it was another reason I threw the book across the room.
The end kind of picked up BECAUSE THEY LEFT THE SCHOOL but by then I was counting the pages. The ending, I guess was supposed to be surprising, but I found it confusing and a bit lackluster. It barely made any sense, at least to me, because it was some mumbo-jumbo metaphor for continue to live life when the going gets tough. It didn’t tie anything up and the story was left suspended. I closed the book saying, “ehhhh what?!”
Sorry, I know this is a lot of ranting but the only reason I finished this book because I was holding onto the hope of it becoming better and blowing my mind.
Again, I was disappointed.
The only reason I gave this two stars instead of one is because the writing was very good, while everything else fell flat.
not enough books, not enough time 