A review by caitcoy
Dust & Decay by Jonathan Maberry

5.0

What I loved about [b:Rot and Ruin|7157310|Rot and Ruin (Benny Imura, #1)|Jonathan Maberry|http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1264898635s/7157310.jpg|7443037] was the emotional complexity of the zombies and the way in which the characters treated them. Happily, Dust and Decay does this even better. While Rot and Ruin introduced us to the new world after the zombie apocalypse, or First Night, as everyone in the book calls it, Dust and Decay gets into the heads of its characters and pushes them to their emotional limits. Tom, Benny, and his friends Nix, Lilah and Chong, decide to leave the walled town of Mountainside and attempt to find the jet they glimpsed at the end of Rot and Ruin. But Mountainside and the Rot and Ruin are not quite ready to let them go. Maberry does an excellent job in allowing you to see into the heads of each of the main characters, much more so than in Rot and Ruin which was primarily in Benny's POV. The growth of the characters was compelling and the tension was so well done that I never wanted to put the book down. And the villains! They were believable, nuanced and awesome! No cardboard figures here, thank God. As much as I enjoyed Rot and Ruin, Dust and Decay delivered on its promise and made me hungry for more. The language is still at times overdramatic, but less so and as heartbreaking (it's definitely one you see coming) as this part of the story is, I can't wait to see where Maberry takes them next!