Reviews with content warning for Racial slurs - Dread Nation

A few words before I forget — wow, I really enjoyed this! Great action, world building, and story telling. This book had twists and revealed information up to the last ten pages. I was already ready to read book 2 when I was halfway through. I think it was paced well and set up a great foundation for Book 2.

But definitely know, it’s also angering because it’s post-Civil War, not quite Reconstruction so the racism, misogynoir, and just the violence of as well as irrational commitment to white supremacy is on fuull display. All I will say is that I wasn’t sad to see that some of the antagonists did not live to see the end of the book.

Like the undead are obviously scary and unpredictable but the scariest folks in this book are definitely the living — the white supremacists.

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dontwritedown's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced

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

4.75

Dread Nation was one of the first books Storygraph ever recommended me, but it took forever to track down but I am so happy I did.

The basis of the story is: the American Civil War ends when zombies (also known as shamblers) walk from Gettysburg and terrorize the country. A few years later, Jane McKing and her friends find themselves in a Western settlement with many dark secrets.

Totally kept me on the edge of my seat (when you find out the truth about Jane's parentage omg), need to find the next one asap. My only issue is that I'm not sure I'd recommend it to friends....especially cause every five minutes in the audiobook there is a variation of a slur against a Black person and that can be a lot.

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boekenalsontbijt's review against another edition

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adventurous dark tense medium-paced

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

3.25

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mickij's review against another edition

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adventurous dark medium-paced

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

4.5

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thebakersbooks's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional funny mysterious tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

A nail-biting historical zombie-plague novel featuring a badass Black heroine!

Me, filing a zombie book under 'favorites'? Never would have expected it! But seriously, Dread Nation is award-winning for a reason—or maybe I should say reasons. It's historical speculative fiction set after what we know as the American Civil War, only the war got interrupted when dead soldiers started walking around and eating people at Gettysburg. With that premise plus a trio of badass heroes fighting shamblers and institutional racism at the same time, this book was sure to be a hit with fans of the zombie subgenre. However, I'm not usually a fan of zombies, so what pulled me in was the characters and the dry humor; my eventual enjoyment of the zombie-based aspects was a pleasant surprise.

One aspect of the way the narrative was set up that I especially enjoyed was how human evils (racism and intentional misuse of religion, particularly) ended up being scarier than the literal devouring dead. Marginalized people in the story are also put in positions where they're more likely to run afoul of shamblers, which was a nice bit of worldbuilding that parallels how a lot of real-world dangers (disease and injury, for instance) disproportionately affect marginalized people and are much harder to manage for marginalized folks than those with privilege.

The scariest part of the book has nothing at all to do with shamblers: it's when one character's attempt to pass as white is found out by the violently racist pastor and sheriff.

Relationships between characters were another highlight. Main character Jane has a complex family background

because of her white-passing mother

and is more invested in putting down shamblers and protecting those she cares about than in fitting into a white-dominated society that treats Black and Indigenous people as disposable tools despite the fact that slavery is now illegal. Jane has a lovers-to-friends dynamic with Jackson, who is a vaguely Robin-Hood-esque figure in their community. (Jane met Jackson when she saved him from shamblers, which is a nice inversion of the common 'male hero rescues female love interest' dynamic.) She also starts out as enemies with Katherine, a fellow student from her combat school—side note: there's definitely a degree of sexual tension between Jane and Katherine, at least on Jane's side, which is semi-confirmed when it turns out Jane is either bi or pan. (Katherine is asexual and aromantic.) I loved how Jane and Katherine became allies and eventually almost friends.

The MC's voice and the book's tone lend themselves to a surprising amount of humor given the genre and subject matter. This ranges from incisively wry observations ("There's nothing white folks hate more than realizing they accidentally treated a Negro like a person") to endearing snark ("I was already on academic probation on account of not caring enough about the importance of gravy boats"). The chapter titles further contribute to the humor, including gems like "In which all hell breaks loose," and "In which I embrace my recklessness." Those touches provide a welcome respite from all the people getting gnawed on by shamblers.

This book will appeal to fans of zombie horror, but also to horror babies like me—there's some gore and a few zombie-based scares, but those were fairly mild as the genre goes, in my opinion. I'd encourage even readers who are wary of zombies to give this a shot if the other aspects sound appealing. I don't think I've ever been in such a hurry to see if a sequel was available at my library after finishing a book, so hopefully that tells you how highly I recommend this!

Content notes: anti-Black racism; anti-Indigenous racism; many references to slavery; anti-Black slurs (historical); anti-Indigenous slurs (historical); mild to medium blood and gore; medical experimentation on Black people; phrenology; internalized colorism; societal colorism; mention of anti-Asian racism

Content Warnings