Thomas Jenner (1)

I think God took all the good people away. If there is a God. I'm not so sure anymore. Wait, will I go to hell for thinking that way?
-- Decay of Innocence

When the Dead walk the Earth, the REAL demons emerge...
-- Death of Innocence


First, I need to point out that these books were originally published as 6 separate graphic novels, Kellie's Diary #1-6. Then they were published as two compilations. Kellie's Diary - Decay of Innocence (Kellie's Diary #1-3) and Kellie's Diary - Death of Innocence show more (Kellie's Diary #4-6). I was confused about this and ended up buying Kellie's Diary #2 after reading Decay of Innocence. When I started reading, I was like, wait I already read this.. I eventually figured it out. Looking back, I don't know what confused me so much.

Decay of Innocence starts off in January of 1993. At the start of the book, Kellie is 9-years old and she is living a fairly normal life. Gradually, we hear that more and more people are getting sick. By Chapter 5, we realize that something is terribly wrong. Kellie is stuck by herself at school and trying to escape the zombies.

Kellie is very smart and resourceful, even though she doesn't seem to know anything about zombies. Her first goal is to get to her house. Once there, when she doesn't find her family, her goal is to get to Oregon (to where her grandfather lives). She is hoping to find someone from her family alive.

Throughout the series, Kellie is very strong and does what she needs to in order to survive. She protects those she loves and tries to protect herself as well. She meets many people along the way, some good and some bad. And it seems like the zombies are not the worst thing left in this scary world.

I enjoyed this series very much. I started reading the Decay of Innocence during the Readathon last Saturday and when I finished, I immediately bought Death of Innocence and kept going. It was hard to read about the abuse Kellie suffered. No child should be forced to deal with such evil. It was interesting to read about the zombie apocalypse from a child's point of view (a child who manages to survive on her own for quite a while).

Recommended to:
Fans of graphic novels and apocalyptic stories. This is definitely an adult book. There is a lot of graphic violence including child abuse and sexual abuse. show less

Party over, oops out of time!

(Caution: minor spoilers ahead!)

The fourth installment in an ongoing series (Parts 1 through 3 are available both individually and collected in Kellie's Diary: Decay of Innocence; Part 1 is free on Amazon), Kellie's Diary #4 picks up nearly four years after where Part 3 left off. The date is April 6, 1999, and Kellie - just nine years old when we first found her - is a more mature 15 (and a half! Teenagers know how important those fractions are!) In a surprising show more twist, she, Lydia, Sarah, and Dan are still living with the train people; given Sarah and Dan's suspicions about leader Mark, I thought for sure that the groups would have parted ways within days or weeks of meeting. While Lydia helps to grow food in the on-board garden, Kellie accompanies the salvage teams as a scout.

It's on a mission on the outskirts of Los Angeles, in Highland, that things go terribly wrong. The town isn't just empty of supplies, but seemingly abandoned, and long since. And yet, Kellie and Sarah feel eyes watching silently as they search house after house. Their suspicions are confirmed when, on their second day of scavenging, a group of heavily armed men attempt to hijack the train and steal their provisions. In a horrific scene that floods Kellie's head with memories of Dr. Crane, one of the thieves shows a little too much interest in young Lydia. It's in this moment that things really go south.

Though half of the train community manages to escape, a more insidious threat lurks from within in the form of Pastor Paul. A creepy, End Times fundie type, Paul hatches a plot to infect the entire community with zombieosis, thus speeding along "God's Plan" and delivering everyone to the next world. Luckily, Kellie and Lydia manage to escape - but find themselves in an abandoned industrial district even creepier than the abandoned town they just left behind. Visions of "Bagman" continue to haunt Kellie, who's becoming increasingly distrustful of her own senses. One thing she can be sure of: she and Lydia are not alone.

Kellie's Diary #4 is a step up from the previous episodes, which are readable enough, but not terribly suspenseful or especially memorable. Part 4 ups the creep factor considerably, and ends at a rather crucial moment. The book also contains the short story Sarah's Despair (previously published in Decay of Innocence) - so, with just 64% of the story down, I was shocked to see it end so abruptly. Shocked, but in a good way! I'm definitely looking forward to Part 5.

As Kellie ages, her writing style matures. This is a huge improvement over the more childish entries in Part 1, which I sometimes found hard to read. With the large gaps in time and consequent rapid aging of the narrator, the focus of the series has necessarily shifted, too: this is no longer a look at the apocalypse through a child's eyes, but rather those of a young adult. But there's always younger sister Lydia (seemingly deep in denial, much like the citizens of Woodbury in The Walking Dead) to present the child's view.

On the downside, aside from Kellie's discovery of an old Nintendo console, there aren't nearly as many '90s references as I'd hoped. Although, to be fair, I guess most of the decade in this universe was spent fighting off the zombie hordes.

In Part 4, the authors shift from a faux diary format (handwriting font, water-stained, college-ruled notebook paper) to a plain-text format, reportedly due to technical and space issues. While the diary format has that authentic feel, I prefer the more readable plain-text format. Parts 1 through 3 use the faux diary format, while Decay of Innocence is plain-text. Plan your purchases accordingly!

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I think God took all the good people away. If there is a God. I'm not so sure anymore. Wait, will I go to hell for thinking that way?
-- Decay of Innocence

When the Dead walk the Earth, the REAL demons emerge...
-- Death of Innocence


First, I need to point out that these books were originally published as 6 separate graphic novels, Kellie's Diary #1-6. Then they were published as two compilations. Kellie's Diary - Decay of Innocence (Kellie's Diary #1-3) and Kellie's Diary - Death of Innocence show more (Kellie's Diary #4-6). I was confused about this and ended up buying Kellie's Diary #2 after reading Decay of Innocence. When I started reading, I was like, wait I already read this.. I eventually figured it out. Looking back, I don't know what confused me so much.

Decay of Innocence starts off in January of 1993. At the start of the book, Kellie is 9-years old and she is living a fairly normal life. Gradually, we hear that more and more people are getting sick. By Chapter 5, we realize that something is terribly wrong. Kellie is stuck by herself at school and trying to escape the zombies.

Kellie is very smart and resourceful, even though she doesn't seem to know anything about zombies. Her first goal is to get to her house. Once there, when she doesn't find her family, her goal is to get to Oregon (to where her grandfather lives). She is hoping to find someone from her family alive.

Throughout the series, Kellie is very strong and does what she needs to in order to survive. She protects those she loves and tries to protect herself as well. She meets many people along the way, some good and some bad. And it seems like the zombies are not the worst thing left in this scary world.

I enjoyed this series very much. I started reading the Decay of Innocence during the Readathon last Saturday and when I finished, I immediately bought Death of Innocence and kept going. It was hard to read about the abuse Kellie suffered. No child should be forced to deal with such evil. It was interesting to read about the zombie apocalypse from a child's point of view (a child who manages to survive on her own for quite a while).

Recommended to:
Fans of graphic novels and apocalyptic stories. This is definitely an adult book. There is a lot of graphic violence including child abuse and sexual abuse. show less

Kellie's Diary Parts 1-3 + Extras

(Caution: Minor spoilers ahead! Also, trigger warning for rape.)

After a brief stay with her grandfather in Oregon, nine-year-old Kellie has just been reunited with her family in Austin, Texas when all hell breaks loose. The dead begin rising, only to feast on the living - and poor Kellie finds herself all alone. Well, almost. As she traverses the West Coast in search of her parents and two younger sisters, her diary "Barbie" proves a constant and dependable show more companion. In between Barbie's covers, Kellie documents the horrors she witnesses.

Currently the Kellie's Diary series spans four books, with parts 1 through 3 collected in Kellie's Diary: Decay of Innocence. There are also a few "extras," including a preview of a related upcoming series, Survival Chronicles:

Kellie's Diary, Part 1 - The dead begin rising right in the middle of Kellie's third-grade class. When a seemingly deranged man bursts through the classroom window and mauls the substitute teacher, Kellie flees into the bathroom. Once the chaos subsides, she makes the long and terrifying trek back to her home - only to find it empty. (January 18 through January 25, 1993)

Kellie's Diary, Part 2 - A year older and an apocalypse wiser, Kellie has spent months researching and planning a journey (back) to her grandfather's farm, where she believes she might find her parents and sisters. In California, her plans are thrown into disarray when she crosses paths with the evil Dr. Crane. Aided by a horde of zombies, Kellie manages to escape her captor - only to stumble onto a camp of survivors (and into the sights of their rifles). (December 4, 1993 through January 9, 1994)

Kellie's Diary, Part 3 - Reunited with her younger sister, Lydia, Kellie has all but resigned herself to the fact that the rest of her family is dead. She and Lydia live a (mostly) peaceful existence in the camp, where they're cared for by Sarah, an adoptive mother of sorts. Haunted by memories of Dr. Crane in the form of "Bag Man," the walking dead remain a constant - if sometimes underappreciated - threat. That is, until the day they finally manage to breach the camp's defenses. Along with a few other refugees from the camp, the girls go on the run, only to find themselves aboard a train-bound community. While the citizens appear self-sufficient and welcoming enough, not everything is as it seems. For starters, why did two of its scavengers try to abduct Kellie and Lydia? (June 17 through ~June 22, 1995)

Sarah's Despair - The beginning of the end as told from Sarah's perspective. Also an Austin native, we learn how Sarah discovered Lydia and hitched up with the other founders of the California camp.

Dr. Crane - This extra introduces us to Kellie's tormentor, child psychiatrist-turned-sadist Dr. Crane. In what feels like one coincidence too many, we first meet Crane at the California camp, where he's just imprisoned, tortured, and killed two of the resident children. As the search party closes in on his trailer, Crane flees; ultimately he hitches a ride with an unsuspecting couple, landing at the mall in Junction where he'll later meet Kellie. Those unfortunate enough to encounter Crane become part of his sick experiments (the "rebuilding process"), which involve torturing survivors of the zombie plague in order to "cleave the weak." Thankfully, this short story doesn't elaborate on how Crane "tested" Kellie (though rape is heavily suggested in Parts 2 and 3).

The Downfall: Survival Chronicles #1 - This is a short look at a new series of "survival horror" that's only tangentially related to Kellie's Diary (in that they take place in the same universe). 18-year-old Brandon Williams is a down-on-his-luck orphan working a crappy construction job in order to support his 13-year-old sister Danielle. He's on the job in Dallas when the apocalypse comes a-knockin'. On his way home to his sister, Brandon is bit and infected; he begins to turn right there on his front steps. And then...blackness. Brandon dies, but wakes up in a lab reborn. Neither human nor zombie, but something new. Do you remember the day you died?

Although the first installment of Kellie's Diary starts out rather slow, the action does pick up as the story progresses. The plot also becomes a bit darker - though not quite as bleak as I'd expected, based on some of the other reviews. (Rape is a common theme in dystopian fiction, and thankfully Kellie's assault at the hands of Dr. Crane is alluded to rather than described in detail.)

While the authors approach the zombie genre using a unique perspective (through the eyes of a young girl) and format (a diary), there's not a whole lot here to distinguish the plot from other zombie stories. (In particular, the debate abOut whether or not the camp's children should be armed reminded me of similar arguments on The Walking Dead, with Sarah standing in as Kellie's Diary's Carol; and the setting is evocative of Rhiannon Frater's The First Days: As the World Dies.)

It's a readable enough story, and I plan on downloading Part 4 if only to find out how things go sideways with the train people (as they inevitably will), but I probably won't keep up after that. My book pile's already too big as it is.

Something else to note: while the individual installments are presented in a handwriting font, complete with faux college-ruled, water-stained notebook pages, the collection looks more like a regular book, complete with a less flowery font. What the collection lacks in charm and authenticity it more than makes up for in readability: this format is much easier on the eyes.

Vaguely reminiscent of Warm Bodies, The Downfall: Survival Chronicles #1 looks promising as well (though I could do without all the gendered slurs - that is, unless we're supposed to dislike Brandon, in which case have at it!); I guess we'll have to see where it goes from here.

3.5 stars, rounded down to 3 on Amazon. While an improvement over Part 1, I still feel like the series could use a little extra something to set it apart from the thousands of other zombie stories out there.

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