Reviews

Devil's Wake by Tananarive Due, Steven Barnes

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joyful24's review against another edition

5.0

Methinks Butler's Parables had an affair with Night of the Living Dead to give birth to this story. I really really really hope that they make this entire book into a movie or a series! The short film Danger Word was awesome; but this story is stellar! The last sentence gave me goosebumps. I kept hearing the authors say "If its a well written story; you can take a character through hell and back & the reader will follow you." {They actually said that at the 2010 Octavia Butler Conference at Spelman College} I do not even like zombies; but the imagery ALONE made me want to nose dive into the genre.

Innocence lost. Happenstance. Apocalypse. Tenacity. Awakening. Determination. Bad Luck. Good instincts. Purpose. Uncertainty. New Beginnings

nicolenordi's review

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adventurous challenging emotional hopeful mysterious sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.5

ruxiemcgouth's review against another edition

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3.0

Decent zombie apocalypse thriller book. Fast read and characters I wanted to see succeed. Enjoyable!

remigves's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark mysterious reflective 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

4.0

readswhilewalking's review against another edition

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adventurous dark fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No

2.0

I see that this book is YA, and this makes sense to me, but I really didn’t like it, even as YA. The writing is very surface level. Things happen to people and we get very little about what it all means to them. There’s not much in the way of character development, the characters just ride from one catastrophic tragedy to the next. I do think this would be a really fun movie or tv show, though.

blkwwwaffle's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? N/A
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.0

This being YA makes so much sense now that I’ve finished the book. When it was recommended to me I assumed it was Adult fiction, but the structure of the story proved to be more immature than I was expecting. I’m not saying that all YA books are generic and bad, but most of the time you can tell when a book is intended for a younger audience. Anyways, this is your usual zombie apocalypse story where a bunch of random survivors join forces and shit eventually hits the fan while they’re on the road. However, the zombies in this version are smarter which makes them scarier than the ones in The Walking Dead, but we didn’t get to explore their deadly abilities as much as I wanted to. While I had a little fun being in this fictional world, I just couldn’t fully immerse myself in the story. None of the character’s personalities stuck out to me as endearing, so I didn’t connect with any of the characters like I did in the first season of The Walking Dead. I was trying so hard not to compare every single scene to The Walking Dead, but I hold this show so close to my heart that it was difficult not to. Overall, I’m disappointed that the story and the characters weren’t as fleshed out as I hoped they’d be.

ceridwenanne's review

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adventurous dark emotional hopeful tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.0

It took me a hot minute to get into, but once the gears catch, Devil's Wake is a ride. The shifting perspectives had a short story writer's attention to character work. I understand this was supposed to be a trilogy -- and this one has an almost inconclusive ending -- but only the first two were written. Shame.