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A review by melbsreads
Highway Bodies by Alison Evans
2.5
Trigger warnings: death of a parent, seriously y'all there is so much death in this book, zombies, stabbing, graphic violence, blood, animal death, death of a friend, death of a sibling, homophobia, transphobia.
So here's the thing: I love how much diversity is in this story. All the protagonists are queer and/or gender non-conforming, and it's great. I also loved that it didn't shy away from the violence of a zombie apocalypse and the inevitable loss of friends and family members. So all of that was great.
However.
I had several problems with this:
1. There's literally no indication of which protagonist is speaking and it often took me a decent chunk of the chapter to work it out. Even if the chapters had started with the character's name, it would have made it an easier reading experience.
2. I...don't love Evans' writing style and I can't pinpoint why. I had the same problem with Ida.
3. There was very little worldbuilding and very little drive to the story. Like, there really wasn't much of a PURPOSE to the story besides "these three groups of kids will eventually meet up".
4. I never really felt like I knew who any of the characters were. The reader is jump dumped into things as the zombie outbreak happens and there's very little explanation of who these kids actually are.
5. I don't really understand the decision to leave one of the protagonists nameless for the first 300 pages of the book. Like, a nameless narrator can definitely work, but there needs to be a reason for it. It didn't seem like there was one here.
6. I really didn't like some of the choices made for the largely nameless narrator. I...yeah. The spelling and grammar is grating in those chapters and given that I felt like we didn't get to know the characters, it didn't really mean much??
7. It ended just as things were finally getting really interesting.
Basically? I went in hoping i would love this and I just...didn't. Sigh.
So here's the thing: I love how much diversity is in this story. All the protagonists are queer and/or gender non-conforming, and it's great. I also loved that it didn't shy away from the violence of a zombie apocalypse and the inevitable loss of friends and family members. So all of that was great.
However.
I had several problems with this:
1. There's literally no indication of which protagonist is speaking and it often took me a decent chunk of the chapter to work it out. Even if the chapters had started with the character's name, it would have made it an easier reading experience.
2. I...don't love Evans' writing style and I can't pinpoint why. I had the same problem with Ida.
3. There was very little worldbuilding and very little drive to the story. Like, there really wasn't much of a PURPOSE to the story besides "these three groups of kids will eventually meet up".
4. I never really felt like I knew who any of the characters were. The reader is jump dumped into things as the zombie outbreak happens and there's very little explanation of who these kids actually are.
5. I don't really understand the decision to leave one of the protagonists nameless for the first 300 pages of the book. Like, a nameless narrator can definitely work, but there needs to be a reason for it. It didn't seem like there was one here.
6. I really didn't like some of the choices made for the largely nameless narrator. I...yeah. The spelling and grammar is grating in those chapters and given that I felt like we didn't get to know the characters, it didn't really mean much??
7. It ended just as things were finally getting really interesting.
Basically? I went in hoping i would love this and I just...didn't. Sigh.