erine 's review for:

Dread Nation by Justina Ireland

5.0

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A hair slow to start, but this zombie alternative history of the Civil War reconstruction era picks up pretty quickly. Jane boasts mad skills at killing zombies, but isn't doing so well at her manners and etiquette, skills she'll need as an Attendant. She's training to become a protector for a white woman in a world where a violent zombie plague disrupted the already deadly atmosphere of the Civil War. The consequences of this plague include a failure to resolve the slavery issue, which initially seems like one of the alternative parts to this history, but the more I read the more I wondered if that isn't kind of the point. Technically slavery becomes illegal, but many communities are figuring out ways to replicate the old hierarchies, pretty much like what really happened but with zombies.

I found a lot to like here: complex characters with flaws, fierce women fighters, a powerful look at what it was like to pass as white, and a nice roast of the idea that skin color or ethnicity matters in the midst of zombies trying to kill everyone. The villains were a bit caricature-ish, a trifecta of evil and idiotic white men (a mayor, a sheriff, and a preacher), but not necessarily unrealistic. The zombies allow for Jane's sarcastic tone to shine through, and the whole thing is a great balance of humor, history, and dark realities.