The Walking Dead, Book Six

Greatest zombie series ever. Graphic novel consists of the first comcis and story line. Must read for any zombie fan! ( )

The group continues to slowly lose their collective minds, although it is quickly made evident that they haven’t gone as crazy as some groups when they find themselves stalked by living cannibals. Toss in a preacher who failed to protect his flock and what turned out to be a pack of lies from the scientist, and it’s no wonder the group is suspicious when a couple of men approach and offer them refuge in an idyllic community just outside of DC. They in their state of PTSD can’t stop seeing danger around every corner and don’t even realize the dangerous ones just might be themselves.

I didn't particularly enjoy the cannibalism plot-line. I can see its value, yes, but I also feel like we’d already seen how bad humanity can go in Woodbury, and if people are going to be eating people, that’s what you have zombies for. So the first half of the book is kind of meh to me. On the other hand, seeing our group in contrast to the relatively untraumatized one in DC is wonderful. I like how evident it is that our main group have serious PTSD and everyone is so concerned with survival and maintaining the norm that no one does anything about it.

Overall, this entry moves the plot forward, but that plot momentum is left mostly to the second half of the book. Worthy of the series and hopefully book 7 will live up to the build-up.

Check out my full review: http://wp.me/pp7vL-IA ( )

Just when I think that the series can't really get much darker, Kirkman surprises me yet again. The main characters are transforming into much more brutal versions of themselves, and once they have a chance to live in a "normal" place, it's obvious that they're having extreme difficulty fitting into the patterns that they once took for granted. The author's doing a great job of keeping the suspense going. ( )

So complex and horrifying. Love this series! ( )

Young Ben kills his twin brother Billy, and is in turn killed by Carl when the adults can't come to terms over what to do about Ben, who clearly needed psychiatric help they couldn't provide. Dale is bitten by a roamer, but keeps it secret and goes off into the woods to die, where he is captured and partially eaten by a band of cannibal humans. Rick and the others locate them and dispatch them. They find out that Eugene's story about being a scientist who needs to get back to D.C. to find a cure for the plague is just that, a story. The group is taken in by a seemingly idyllic gated community, but at the book's conclusion we see that Rick has decided to secretly retrieve their confiscated weapons. It remains to be seen whether this will turn out to be a wise decision. There is a lot of emotional turmoil here, even for this series, particularly in the conversation with Rick and his son Carl about the death of Ben, and between Dale and Rick as Dale prepares to meet his end. And again, we see that the living are capable of far more cruelty and evil than the dead ever were. ( )