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3.93 AVERAGE
3.93 AVERAGE
adventurous
dark
tense
fast-paced
adventurous
emotional
tense
fast-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
I really enjoyed reading this book. It kept the reader engaged and not want to put the book down. The characters were likeable, and the main character already had great character growth. I would 100% recommend this book. It is a great start to a series that I assume will also be great.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Child death, Death, Violence, Death of parent
The Rot and Ruin series is an amazing series and this first book grips you in with the first two pages. If you love suspense and romance you will love these books. They give you a great view of what a zombie apocalypse could be like and introduces you to a world of action and violence that gives you a connection with the main character because you want to help him but you can't
adventurous
emotional
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
This is a re-read for me but I read it when I was 12 so it was basically fresh.
How this series did not get as much attention as some of the other post apocalyptic teen novels I have no idea. The lore is fascinating, the action is well written, and just the plot in general is a page turner. I will say some parts like the romance aspects of it (as a child and as adult) do frustrate me a little bit which is why it’s 4 and not 5 stars. I could do without a romance in books sometimes HOWEVER I do appreciate that the romance wasn’t an A plot or even a B plot it was like the C or D plot.
If you liked any of the YA dystopian/post apocalyptic novels like The Hunger Games, The Giver, Divergent, etc you’ll definitely love this.
It was a good book to get me out of a week long reading slump as well!
Overall I think this book has great plot, good characters that are complex and interesting, and while some aspects could be improved I think for what this book is (a YA novel) it’s doing its job and I think any teen/young adult who likes to read would be interested in this novel (and the series).
How this series did not get as much attention as some of the other post apocalyptic teen novels I have no idea. The lore is fascinating, the action is well written, and just the plot in general is a page turner. I will say some parts like the romance aspects of it (as a child and as adult) do frustrate me a little bit which is why it’s 4 and not 5 stars. I could do without a romance in books sometimes HOWEVER I do appreciate that the romance wasn’t an A plot or even a B plot it was like the C or D plot.
If you liked any of the YA dystopian/post apocalyptic novels like The Hunger Games, The Giver, Divergent, etc you’ll definitely love this.
It was a good book to get me out of a week long reading slump as well!
Overall I think this book has great plot, good characters that are complex and interesting, and while some aspects could be improved I think for what this book is (a YA novel) it’s doing its job and I think any teen/young adult who likes to read would be interested in this novel (and the series).
2.5 stars
Interested in more of my reviews? Visit my blog!
I’ve read several zombie books in the recent months. Because of this I know that it’s important for the author to come up with some original aspect to centralize their story around. I don’t feel that this book did it… what this book felt like to me was a typical YA story with zombies thrown in as an after-thought.
Rot & Ruin’s ‘original aspect’ focused on a group of people trying to change the world to make people see and understand that zombies don’t have any control over their actions and that they were once people and should be treated as such.
The society 14 years after ‘First Night’ is a far cry from the world today. People have developed a rut to the point where they have no desire to attempt taking back their world so they survive by living locked inside a chain link fence living in cabins and surviving without electricity. How zombies came to be is never explained either, which, I missed because I always love a good explanation for their existence. Even people who die of natural causes come back as zombies. But even after all this time, these people have chosen to live a stagnant life of monotony rather than attempt to grow and develop as a people and overcome the zombies. This line pretty much sums it up:
”Electronics and complex machines were no longer allowed in town, because of a strong religious movement that associated that kind of power with the “Godless behavior” that had brought about “the end.””
The Imura brothers, Tom and Benny, are in the zombie killing business… or more appropriately, they are in business to bring families peace of mind. Rather than just going out and mindlessly slaying zombies to be rid of them, they are hired by families to locate their zombiefied family members and kill them so that they can rest assured that they are no longer the walking dead going around munching on people. Num num.
No, there weren’t kitten zombies in this book (I’m just a sucker for cute cat pictures) but in my zombie world there totally would be.
There were a few other interesting tidbits to this story, like, “Gameland”. So apparently some really sick and twisted humans that were often described as being worse than the zombies (because the zombies of course don’t know what they’re doing and should be excused because they’ve got a bad case of the munchies) like to capture up small children and force them to fight against zombies. We never see Gameland, we just hear about it…. So that storyline kinda fell flat.
There was also the story about the “Lost Girl”. The girl who’s survived on her own for years. Benny first learns about her when he gets her ‘card’ in the latest batch of zombie cards. Yes, zombie cards. Much like your normal baseball cards, but with celebrity zombies, bounty hunters, etc. So yes, Benny gets the “Lost Girl” card and is immediately infatuated with her. It suddenly becomes his desire to find her, save her, and keep her from danger. Aw, here comes her knight in shining armor.
But the only thing I can think of is, here’s this 15 year old kid who just started training to be a zombie hunter less than week ago and he feels it’s his mission in life to now save this total bad ass Xena type zombie killing machine who’s been surviving on her own in the Rot & Ruin for YEARS… and Benny plans on saving her. With his wooden sword. Right.
By the time the ending came around I was truly bored. I think the complete predictability of the book had something to do with it but this story just lacked in overall excitement for me.
Interested in more of my reviews? Visit my blog!
I’ve read several zombie books in the recent months. Because of this I know that it’s important for the author to come up with some original aspect to centralize their story around. I don’t feel that this book did it… what this book felt like to me was a typical YA story with zombies thrown in as an after-thought.
Rot & Ruin’s ‘original aspect’ focused on a group of people trying to change the world to make people see and understand that zombies don’t have any control over their actions and that they were once people and should be treated as such.
The society 14 years after ‘First Night’ is a far cry from the world today. People have developed a rut to the point where they have no desire to attempt taking back their world so they survive by living locked inside a chain link fence living in cabins and surviving without electricity. How zombies came to be is never explained either, which, I missed because I always love a good explanation for their existence. Even people who die of natural causes come back as zombies. But even after all this time, these people have chosen to live a stagnant life of monotony rather than attempt to grow and develop as a people and overcome the zombies. This line pretty much sums it up:
”Electronics and complex machines were no longer allowed in town, because of a strong religious movement that associated that kind of power with the “Godless behavior” that had brought about “the end.””
The Imura brothers, Tom and Benny, are in the zombie killing business… or more appropriately, they are in business to bring families peace of mind. Rather than just going out and mindlessly slaying zombies to be rid of them, they are hired by families to locate their zombiefied family members and kill them so that they can rest assured that they are no longer the walking dead going around munching on people. Num num.
No, there weren’t kitten zombies in this book (I’m just a sucker for cute cat pictures) but in my zombie world there totally would be.
There were a few other interesting tidbits to this story, like, “Gameland”. So apparently some really sick and twisted humans that were often described as being worse than the zombies (because the zombies of course don’t know what they’re doing and should be excused because they’ve got a bad case of the munchies) like to capture up small children and force them to fight against zombies. We never see Gameland, we just hear about it…. So that storyline kinda fell flat.
There was also the story about the “Lost Girl”. The girl who’s survived on her own for years. Benny first learns about her when he gets her ‘card’ in the latest batch of zombie cards. Yes, zombie cards. Much like your normal baseball cards, but with celebrity zombies, bounty hunters, etc. So yes, Benny gets the “Lost Girl” card and is immediately infatuated with her. It suddenly becomes his desire to find her, save her, and keep her from danger. Aw, here comes her knight in shining armor.
But the only thing I can think of is, here’s this 15 year old kid who just started training to be a zombie hunter less than week ago and he feels it’s his mission in life to now save this total bad ass Xena type zombie killing machine who’s been surviving on her own in the Rot & Ruin for YEARS… and Benny plans on saving her. With his wooden sword. Right.
By the time the ending came around I was truly bored. I think the complete predictability of the book had something to do with it but this story just lacked in overall excitement for me.
This book started out so-so but quickly became good once Benny started acting or rather thinking more maturely towards his brother which happened before pg 100 i can't remember.
This book makes you think about life and how truly sad how evil people are.
"People need something to blame. If they can't find something rational to blame, then they'll very happily blame something irrational."
-Rot and Ruin by Jonathan Mayberry
i thought this book was supposed to be about Scary zombies that should die, kill as many as possible and find shelter! But instead in the first 100 pages instead of them showing how monsterous they are it gave you this very eye opening description. Not just about zombies in general but also the human race. I watched The walking dead and yelled at the tv to kill them so many times o.o yet this book makes you really think about people. Even if the soul is gone the family that belonged to that person still loved him/her deep inside and needs closure. They might know their soul is gone but they still knew that person.
This book deserves five stars not only for the really awesome character of Tom Imura or the eye opening description but the plot. it kept me reading, wondering what will happen! Some things made me sad, some made me gasp in horror, or say YES DIE EVIL VILLIAN MWAHAHAHAH
I really liked this book
This book makes you think about life and how truly sad how evil people are.
"People need something to blame. If they can't find something rational to blame, then they'll very happily blame something irrational."
-Rot and Ruin by Jonathan Mayberry
i thought this book was supposed to be about Scary zombies that should die, kill as many as possible and find shelter! But instead in the first 100 pages instead of them showing how monsterous they are it gave you this very eye opening description. Not just about zombies in general but also the human race. I watched The walking dead and yelled at the tv to kill them so many times o.o yet this book makes you really think about people. Even if the soul is gone the family that belonged to that person still loved him/her deep inside and needs closure. They might know their soul is gone but they still knew that person.
This book deserves five stars not only for the really awesome character of Tom Imura or the eye opening description but the plot. it kept me reading, wondering what will happen! Some things made me sad, some made me gasp in horror, or say YES DIE EVIL VILLIAN MWAHAHAHAH
I really liked this book
Let's hear it for another intelligent, emotional, original, well-done, post-zombie apocalypse novel!
Benny Imura can't find a job, but at fifteen, he needs one badly in order to continue to get along in society. He would rather do anything but join his older brother Tom in the 'family business' of killing zombies. But options are slim, and the vast wildness of the zombie infested land called the Rot and Ruin needs clearing of its undead denizens. And so a very reluctant Benny, saddled with an all-consuming hatred of the creatures that killed his parents on the apocalyptic First Night, agrees to become Tom's apprentice.
Thus begins not only Benny's coming-of-age story, but an amazing tale that is part gruesome zombie novel, part action-packed Western, and altogether a book with more punch behind it than just a bunch of fight scenes and dismemberment (although there's plenty of that too). Kidnappings, murders, conspiracies, chases, twisted plans, and mythical legends all play a part.
I loved the originality of this book, with a main character who starts out as naive, short-tempered and mostly unlikeable only to trace a realistic path of discovery through a world both very different and yet with many resemblances to our own. I loved the way the author played the idea and "rules" of the zombies very straight, imbuing them with fear and suspense, but at the same urged the reader to see both the humanity and sympathy of such wretched creatures. I loved the idea of having zombie bounty hunters as much as I loved the idea of people who brought morality and empathy to the idea of closure and the "death" of the living dead. I loved the characters: Benny himself of course; his wise, badass, katana-wielding brother Tom; beautiful, bookish, increasingly awesome action girl Nix Riley; and the Lost Girl, an urban legend of a mute, feral girl who hunts the woods for corrupt male bounty hunters and zombies to murder with her bayonet spear. With a cast like this, how can this book not be great?
Lastly, the emotion in this novel had a lot more depth than I expected to find. Relationships are interestingly, amusingly, movingly crafted, and they change in realistic and gripping ways. Benny's dynamic with Tom, his shifting feelings about his brother's "job", about zombies, about good and evil, about life in the isolated village, about his own place in the world...all are well-done.
And of course I'm excited by the direction the book is taking and the plotlines it promises to bring up in the sequel; I want to see where these characters and this world go!
Benny Imura can't find a job, but at fifteen, he needs one badly in order to continue to get along in society. He would rather do anything but join his older brother Tom in the 'family business' of killing zombies. But options are slim, and the vast wildness of the zombie infested land called the Rot and Ruin needs clearing of its undead denizens. And so a very reluctant Benny, saddled with an all-consuming hatred of the creatures that killed his parents on the apocalyptic First Night, agrees to become Tom's apprentice.
Thus begins not only Benny's coming-of-age story, but an amazing tale that is part gruesome zombie novel, part action-packed Western, and altogether a book with more punch behind it than just a bunch of fight scenes and dismemberment (although there's plenty of that too). Kidnappings, murders, conspiracies, chases, twisted plans, and mythical legends all play a part.
I loved the originality of this book, with a main character who starts out as naive, short-tempered and mostly unlikeable only to trace a realistic path of discovery through a world both very different and yet with many resemblances to our own. I loved the way the author played the idea and "rules" of the zombies very straight, imbuing them with fear and suspense, but at the same urged the reader to see both the humanity and sympathy of such wretched creatures. I loved the idea of having zombie bounty hunters as much as I loved the idea of people who brought morality and empathy to the idea of closure and the "death" of the living dead. I loved the characters: Benny himself of course; his wise, badass, katana-wielding brother Tom; beautiful, bookish, increasingly awesome action girl Nix Riley; and the Lost Girl, an urban legend of a mute, feral girl who hunts the woods for corrupt male bounty hunters and zombies to murder with her bayonet spear. With a cast like this, how can this book not be great?
Lastly, the emotion in this novel had a lot more depth than I expected to find. Relationships are interestingly, amusingly, movingly crafted, and they change in realistic and gripping ways. Benny's dynamic with Tom, his shifting feelings about his brother's "job", about zombies, about good and evil, about life in the isolated village, about his own place in the world...all are well-done.
And of course I'm excited by the direction the book is taking and the plotlines it promises to bring up in the sequel; I want to see where these characters and this world go!
Maybe 3.5?
I was such a fan of this book when I was a kid - I still enjoyed it today! The writing is less good than I remember, but the story was still so interesting, and obviously I love Tom (LOVE Tom) and love seeing Benny become less annoying.
Some aspects of this book are so cool to me, like the Zombie Cards, the bounty hunter personas, and the Rot and Ruin itself - weirdly this made me want to read a cowboy book as well.
Maybe I’ll keep going! I don’t know if I ever made it to the end of this series, but the *** has me so curious and I can’t remember what that ended up being about
Coming back to say that I actually also think this is a very compassionate take on zombies and the apocalypse, strangely enough
I was such a fan of this book when I was a kid - I still enjoyed it today! The writing is less good than I remember, but the story was still so interesting, and obviously I love Tom (LOVE Tom) and love seeing Benny become less annoying.
Some aspects of this book are so cool to me, like the Zombie Cards, the bounty hunter personas, and the Rot and Ruin itself - weirdly this made me want to read a cowboy book as well.
Maybe I’ll keep going! I don’t know if I ever made it to the end of this series, but the *** has me so curious and I can’t remember what that ended up being about
Coming back to say that I actually also think this is a very compassionate take on zombies and the apocalypse, strangely enough
Bloody hell! This book was incredible!! Can't wait to read Dust and Decay.