Take a photo of a barcode or cover
4.15 AVERAGE
4.15 AVERAGE
American Civil War and zombies Interesting premise. What if during the American Civil War the dead arose and started laying waste to America. One bite is all it takes. The government decides that it will use young black and native americans to fight these undead, training them in academies quite like the boarding schools used to "civilise" Native Americans in the same period and later. It features period doctoring; deeply embedded racism and sexism of the highest order. Along with nefarious plots and skulduggery.
Jane McKeene is an interesting character with a lot going on in her life. The cast is full of complicated people most of whom are just lazily racist and Jane is determined to survive.
Jane McKeene is an interesting character with a lot going on in her life. The cast is full of complicated people most of whom are just lazily racist and Jane is determined to survive.
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
hopeful
sad
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
adventurous
emotional
funny
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
funny
hopeful
mysterious
sad
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
adventurous
mysterious
reflective
tense
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
Oh, how badly I wanted to love this book. I love zombies, I love a badass female protagonist, I love representation and I thought this would be IT. The first 30% was really enjoyable, but I fear that it started to get a little lost in the middle. I think there was a little bit too much going on. Most of the threads that I felt were abandoned will probably be addressed in the sequel, but I don't know if I have enough buy-in to carry on. I just love the idea of everything so much more than the actuality of it. Maybe this would be well-suited to a film or mini-series adaptation.
Overall: Really fun, an exciting concept, but lacking in a few key areas.
Overall: Really fun, an exciting concept, but lacking in a few key areas.
I’ve been anticipating the Australian release of this book for over a year and OH MY GOD IT WAS WORTH THE WAIT.
Jane McKeene is the definition of a kickass female lead! She’s great with weapons, feisty, hilariously obnoxious, stubborn, smart, and she has so much agency. There’s nothing about her I didn’t like and she truly felt like a person rather than just a character - which is no easy feat! I also adored her narration and I could practically hear her voice and accent in my head!
The pacing and plot were also fantastic. I initially thought the story would be wholly set in the school in Baltimore, but there’s a prairie element to the story that elevates it to another level. The story is tense, action-packed, and nails that eerie feeling of “something isn’t right here”. And while it’s well-rounded, impactful, and wrapped up nice enough to be a standalone, there's enough ambiguity and potential to go further.
Every character in the book is compelling, interesting, and has a clear purpose. I adored Katherine as a side character, loved and wanted to know more about Gideon, Redfern, and the Duchess, and the villains were downright HATEFUL. With good villains you either wanna fuck em or fight em, and it was definitely the latter here. They were just SO vile!
And refreshingly, there’s no romance! There are hints of romantic feelings, but these characters have their priorities right: they’re not here to shack up, they’re here to survive.
Slavery and racism are central themes in this story, and obviously as a non-black reviewer I can’t speak to how well these elements were executed. To my ignorant ass it read well, felt contextualised well to the (alternate) time period, and the racism was deliberately uncomfortable without ever veering toward exploitative or gratuitous.
There’s some interesting discourse here about fair passing privilege and the race equivalent of the gay/trans panic defence. And I liked that the author always specifies a character’s skin colour instead of just limiting it to the POC as other authors are wont to do.
The author’s note also includes some valuable context about how Native people were treated during this time, and the real events that informed her portrayal of the school and the town.
This book was honestly worth every minute of the agonisingly wait. I wish I had the language to properly articulate how fucking great it is, because I could never do it justice! It’s strong and well-rounded and it’s already shot to the top of the list of my fave reads of 2019.
Representation: Black MC, multiple black side characters, allusions to bisexual MC and asexual side character (uses different language on page owing to the time period)
Jane McKeene is the definition of a kickass female lead! She’s great with weapons, feisty, hilariously obnoxious, stubborn, smart, and she has so much agency. There’s nothing about her I didn’t like and she truly felt like a person rather than just a character - which is no easy feat! I also adored her narration and I could practically hear her voice and accent in my head!
The pacing and plot were also fantastic. I initially thought the story would be wholly set in the school in Baltimore, but there’s a prairie element to the story that elevates it to another level. The story is tense, action-packed, and nails that eerie feeling of “something isn’t right here”. And while it’s well-rounded, impactful, and wrapped up nice enough to be a standalone, there's enough ambiguity and potential to go further.
Every character in the book is compelling, interesting, and has a clear purpose. I adored Katherine as a side character, loved and wanted to know more about Gideon, Redfern, and the Duchess, and the villains were downright HATEFUL. With good villains you either wanna fuck em or fight em, and it was definitely the latter here. They were just SO vile!
And refreshingly, there’s no romance! There are hints of romantic feelings, but these characters have their priorities right: they’re not here to shack up, they’re here to survive.
Slavery and racism are central themes in this story, and obviously as a non-black reviewer I can’t speak to how well these elements were executed. To my ignorant ass it read well, felt contextualised well to the (alternate) time period, and the racism was deliberately uncomfortable without ever veering toward exploitative or gratuitous.
There’s some interesting discourse here about fair passing privilege and the race equivalent of the gay/trans panic defence. And I liked that the author always specifies a character’s skin colour instead of just limiting it to the POC as other authors are wont to do.
The author’s note also includes some valuable context about how Native people were treated during this time, and the real events that informed her portrayal of the school and the town.
This book was honestly worth every minute of the agonisingly wait. I wish I had the language to properly articulate how fucking great it is, because I could never do it justice! It’s strong and well-rounded and it’s already shot to the top of the list of my fave reads of 2019.
Representation: Black MC, multiple black side characters, allusions to bisexual MC and asexual side character (uses different language on page owing to the time period)
adventurous
dark
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
I love this book! The plot was amazing, the fact that she found friendships in the unlikeliness people. Jane Mckeene is hope. Toward the end, I had so much anticipation bubbling in my heart as to what was going to happen next. I finished it in the early morning because I had to know what happened next so sacrificing my sleep was nothing. This story was beautifully written. There were some plot twists, I didn't expect. The fact of her mother's racial identity, Mr.Gideon, Young Jane tragedy. The way author did a spin-off on slavery with the upcoming zombies and how society had to adjust to it, especially the survivalists, whatever they're called where they're faced with the adversity of working alongside people of color or dying to the ends of monsters is infuriating because you could quite see that you're in an apocalypse, where death seems to be everywhere but even then, their prejudices allows them to be so stubborn and they put it above everything else. Humanity romanticizes the idea of development but stands in its way. I have no complaints about this book, I love that I could imagine this playing out in my head and I'm so excited to continue Jane's story in the sequel about finding her mother and her newfound inspiration. Also, the reading style was just exquisite between the present, the flashbacks to the past, and the journal entries. Go read this book now!
listened to the audiobook and thoroughly enjoyed this! my history major heart had so much fun