A review by whatellisreadnext
Wranglestone by Darren Charlton

adventurous dark emotional hopeful tense fast-paced
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

"𝘗𝘦𝘵𝘦𝘳?"
"𝘞𝘩𝘢𝘵?"
"𝘕𝘰𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘯'," 𝘴𝘢𝘪𝘥 𝘊𝘰𝘰𝘱𝘦𝘳, 𝘵𝘶𝘤𝘬𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘩𝘢𝘪𝘳 𝘣𝘦𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘥 𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘦𝘢𝘳. "𝘐 𝘫𝘶𝘴𝘵 𝘸𝘢𝘯𝘵𝘦𝘥 𝘵𝘰 𝘩𝘦𝘢𝘳 𝘺𝘰𝘶𝘳 𝘯𝘢𝘮𝘦 𝘪𝘴 𝘢𝘭𝘭."

Wranglestone is a community of survivors, on the islands of a lake, in an American national park. The water keeps the dead from their doorsteps, but as the colder months approach, and the ice thickens on the lake, they have to find other ways to protect themselves.

This book has zombies, a m/m relationship, a lot of snow, and a tone of suspense. Don't let the 3 star review put you off, I did enjoy this one and for a YA debut, I thought it was really well done. I absolutely steamed through Wranglestone, and I'd be interested to see where it goes, if the author ends up doing a sequel. 

I enjoyed reading about Jake and Coopers relationship, it was super cute, maybe a little too circumstantial, but it's YA so I'll let it slide. The zombie concept was super unique and it's worth reading just for that alone. One of my only gripes is hard to explain, but the narrative at times felt a little jumbled. I kept going back to reread stuff, thinking I'd missed something, but I hadn't. Also there was one line where a whole word was missing, which did take me out of the story a little.

Overall this was a solid YA post apocalyptic read with great queer representation. I'd recommend giving it a go, especially over the colder months, so you can fully immerse yourself in the setting.

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