White Trash Zombie Unchained

Last book Angel, literally, fell apart. It’s a zombie problem.

She’s back together now - but there’s another zombie problem: Shamblers. Mindless, hungry, aggressive… and contagious. Suddenly all of those fantastical images of a zombie apocalypse seem very real. And no matter what the outcome, it won’t end well for the zombies of the Tribe

The Tribe is willing to go to extreme levels to find a cure as soon as possible, even work with sworn enemies like Christy Charish. As more and more of their human loved ones are at risk, time is running out and Angel worries her own past choices may be responsible for the growing body count.

Angel struggles to find a cure, to be taken seriously, to protect the ones she loves even as she show more resolves their complicated relationship. And she has zombiegators. Which are awesome.

The plot here is a wonderful investigation of a new zombie plague which draws upon… everything

Y’know, while acknowledging that I am an utter fanpoodle here, I have to say how good Diana Rowland is doing this. She takes these wonderful long series, pulls together many themes and events - and then when getting to the later books in the series manages to bring together EVERYTHING - yet at the same time makes it work! She did the same thing with the equally awesome Kara Gillian series. We’re drawing on Angel’s relationship with her father, we have her ex boyfriend and his family and conflict, her relationship with the Tribe, how they survive, the moral quandaries they face, keeping their secret and not going into the dark side, Sabreton’s shenanigans, her job, her love life: all of it is here. And all of it works.

We continue the world building of the Tribe, the conflicts they face deciding how to keep surviving. We have some really excellent explorations of zombie history, the nature of Mature Zombies and their abilities and even a moment where a past assumption/theory is disproved. I really like this because how often is mystical world building presented as solid unquestionable fact? That isn’t how science works, it’s never how science works.

The world building remains solid. The investigation is fun, well paced, full of heavy emotion and with several wrong turns and red herrings capped off with some really excellent twists. The balance of all those world elements is excellently mixed with the plot so the pacing remains good - in fact it works even better because these red herrings and frustrated lack of leads never makes the book feel slow (which can be a problem in investigation books)

And seeing Angel spar with Christy, especially at the end, is excellent. Seeing Angel hold her own is generally always fun

The main, joyous, most perfect part of this series has always been Angel Crawford herself. Her story, her growth, her journey has just been amazing since the very first book and a perfect take on class and gender and disability and growth and maturity and education vs intelligence and so much more. In the beginning she was a drug addict and didn’t generally have her life together - but becoming a zombie we have followed her from book to book to see her get things sorted. We’ve seen her kicking her habit, get her education, hold down her job, put her relationship with a dad on a much better level. This book continues all of this and more: we see Angel becoming more and more confident in herself. We see her actually now having goals and ambitions for herself and even considering a full career and realising she can be so much more. And she’s setting those ambitions high - encouraged by excellent people who support her like Dr. Nykas - things she considered impossible are now within her grasp and she believes she can do it - get a degree, become a scientist and researcher alongside Dr. Nykas. Just the fact that she now believes she can do this just shows how far she has come in terms of confidence

We also see some how she’s grown with her relationships - because she’s no longer taking any condescension from the people around her. She isn’t stung by Christy taking jabs at her intelligence because she knows she’s wrong. We have seen her challenge Marcus in the past about the condescending way he’s treated her - but this evolves into her standing her ground with everyone: including Pierce leader of the Tribe. What I especially really really really really really really love here is how she challenges Pierce and others for looking down on her, giving her orders or otherwise telling her what to do EVEN WHEN she may be wrong. Even when she concedes she makes a mistake or something she does doesn’t go as well as she’d hoped - she is still very clear that her being wrong doesn’t mean she’s stupid or doesn’t have good judgement or needs to do as she’s told or not take the lead. Angel has arrived at a place where she knows she deserves respect and demands that. And it’s beautiful. Angel does her own thing, makes her own decisions and demands to be respected as an equal by everyone. And there’s no spunky agency at all! Every decision Angel makes, even wrong ones - are excellently made and reasonable.

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"White Trash Zombie Unchained" is the most fun I've had with Angel Crawford since the first book in the series.

How could I not like a book that has Angel Crawford AND zombie alligators in it?"

Some of the recent Angel books have been dark, as Angel came to terms with her own nature and her new status as a person that needs to eat brains and who LOVES their smell, especially when fresh.

"White Trash Zombie Unchained" manages to lift the mood while still embracing and enriching the world-building from the previous novels.

Angel comes into her own in this book, showing leadership, taking good decisions and still remaining someone who will rescue frogs from certain death.

The book is packed with wit, humor, action and its own distinctive brand show more of strangeness. The plot stands up on its own, resolves some points from previous books and opens up some intriguing new possibilities. What more could I ask?

The book is perhaps a little wish-fulfillment heavy, but hell, I enjoyed it and Angel certainly deserves it.

Read this one with a grin on your face. I recommend the audiobook version because, for me, Alison McLemore IS Angel Crawford and she does a wonderful job with this book. show less

White Trash Zombie Unchained is the sixth book in the White Trash Zombie series. I haven’t read books 2-5 but I didn’t have too much trouble following along. I would recommend reading the first book, My Life As a White Trash Zombie, before jumping in, just to get familiar with Rowland’s zombie mythology. She does write this book expecting that you know at least that much. Her zombies are different than most. They are sentient beings, like you and I, the main difference being that they eat brains. Even though it’s been several years since I read the first book, I remembered enough of the mythology that I was fine.

Angel Crawford is a zombie who just happens to work in a morgue, which has a convenient supply of fresh brains. One show more day, a supposedly dead body gets up off her table and starts shambling around. This “shambler,” as Anger calls him, is what comes to mind when one pictures a typical zombie – mindless and undead. This is the beginning of a shambler epidemic. It’s up to the Tribe, a group of zombies including Dr. Nikas, who is both a zombie and an expert zombie researcher, to figure out the cause and how to stop it.

I would characterize White Trash Zombie Unchained as a cozy urban fantasy – is there such a thing? If not, you heard it here first! * It’s got quite a bit of humor in it that kept it from getting too dark. I like that this series has a unique take on zombie mythology – that they are secretly among us and most of them have no desire to cause an apocalypse. (Of course, I do like a good zombie apocalypse as well.) I had some trouble understanding the science behind how the shamblers were created. Also, Angel has a mutated zombie parasite inside her and how and why that came about was not clear. I think that was the only thing from previous books that was not explained.

I listened to the audio version of this book. The narrator did a great job with making Angel and her father’s “white trash” Southern accents sound authentic. There are a number of male voices that she does really well too.

I am notorious for starting series and then getting distracted with other books and forgetting about them. Fict Fact is a great site for keeping track of series and helps somewhat – when I remember to check it! I’m glad I was reminded of this series. I enjoyed this book and hope to go back and read books two through five. I’ll keep you posted! show less

Angel Crawford has completely recovered from her limbs rotting off. She's good as new and ready to return to her normal life. Unfortunately, her first day has a corpse rising as a mindless shambler zombie and attacking her and her coworkers. It doesn't take them long to discover that Angel's damaged parasite spread previously to some alligators who further spread the shambler strain. Now, it's approaching pandemic levels and the CDC is involved. Can Angel, Dr. Nikas, and the odious Kristi Charish come up with a cure before it's too late?

This is the sixth installment of the White Trash Zombie series and it's still going strong. Angel is still paying for her slip back into addiction from the last book although she is healed from its show more physical aspects. Although she would work hard to help regardless of the source, this shambler strain of the parasite is especially personal because it originated from her. She understandably feels responsible and guilty for those afflicted who are rapidly dying. Her relationship with Nick is at a standstill due to him witnessing her rotting away. Both are awkward and Angel doesn't want to make their work relationship weird. In school, she's taking classes at the local community college, but struggles with schoolwork and feels pretty pessimistic about the whole thing. By the end of the book, Angel goes through a significant mental transformation that I'm excited to see in future books.

This new shambler parasite seems to be even more contagious than the regular one. People lose their cognitive abilities and only attack other people or animals. If the disease goes on for too long, the afflicted simply die. Large groups of people turn at once and some things just don't add up. The damaged parasite came from the mindless shambler Angel infected in the last installment and infected some alligators in the river. The zombie alligators seem too over the top for the series, but I liked the more silly touch. In addition to the alligators, mosquitos may be responsible for the disease spreading. Since the parasite is historically not able to live in animals, this is all new territory. It also doesn't help that Saberton seems to be a step ahead of them every step of the way.

One of the things I love about this series is that something new is always discovered or learned about the zombie parasite. Mature zombies with the ability to change their appearance aren't new, but how they are created is discovered. Usually, it just happens over time to a small percentage of zombies. Another mature zombie can force the change, which Kang did to Pietro (they have an interesting history together), but the side effects can be catastrophic. Pietro became enraged for a long time and explains his almost psychopathic behavior. Just in this book, he suggests turning Charish against her will and basically enslaving her without any reservations. Thankfully, Dr. Nikas refuses to cross some lines and keeps him in sane territory.

White Trash Zombie Unchained continues this charming series with dynamic stories, memorable characters, mystery, and a sweet romance. I hope this series is not even close to stopping because I look forward to these books every year. Highly recommended and well written. In the meantime, I plan to read Diana Rowland's other paranormal series to make the wait less painful. show less

Sweet Baby Zombie Angel Grows Up
Angel, is walking that relationship line not knowing where things are going or not. Rotting away may have ruined her chance for love forever. Rotting flesh tends to muck love up, it's true. Let's stay on romance here for a minute. There was a scene that was all hopeful smoochy and then it went all Uuug Eeeerg uggggg and the moment was lost ! Way to kill a smexy moment Ms. Rowland.
There seems to be an outbreak of "B" movie zombie types all around town. The source of this new cheesy zombie might be Angel. These moaning shamblers are not reacting well to brains or other treatments, they are dying. Angel and her tribe of civilized zombie race for a cure, even if they must call on an enemy for help. Believe me show more when I tell you they called on the Bitchzilla Deluxe. HATE HER.
Angel is forced to step out of her comfy eating brain chips on the couch mode and go out and mess up, a little. She makes new friends, cold bloodied ones that almost steal the book from her. There is a scene where she swims in the swamp, ewww yuck. You know nothing good happened in those muddy waters. Bad, bad and more bad, piles onto the mountain of crap to deal with.
Omg this book was fun. The ending was most excellent. it was all cross. cross, cross dressing to the extreme. I was up on my feet cheering, it was so good. I'm chuckling now, thinking about it. Oh the next book, I can't wait. show less

Make no mistake, when I rate this book, I'm rating it out of sheer enjoyment. It's total popcorn goodness. AND this particular book in the series is a bit more fun than all the rest. Or at least it just feels that way.

See those crocs on the cover? See that zombie handling them? Yeah?

I'm telling you. This is FUN. It could have taken a more generally funny turn, but it didn't. It's just pure UF goodness with a tribe of zombies eating brains in exchange for immortality, secret and not so secret facilities trying to use or destroy them for their immortality, and it does it with great characters.

Cure for zombies? No, way! Enslave zombies? No, way! Brains in chip format? Sure. Love and rot? Sure. High tech research, zombie crocs, a dreaded show more sociopathic foe? Sure! :)

I'm sorry, but this just tickles all my funny bones. :) Like raspberry ice cream. With BRAINS. show less

I had such a good time with this book! I am so glad that I happened upon this series because I have really grown to love Angel and the rest of the gang over the course of the series. I have been looking forward to listening to this book ever since it was released and it turned out to be just as good as I had hoped it would be.

This is the sixth book in the White Trash Zombie series which should really be read in order since each installment builds on the previous books. This book picks up shortly after the events of the last book. Angel is healed and working on getting her life back together. Unfortunately, some of the events from the past are still causing some problems. Big problems. It seems that the town is dealing with an epidemic show more outbreak of shamblers and the problem is quickly getting worse.

I love Angel. Her character has really grown over the course of the series and it has been a lot of fun to watch her figure out how she wants to live her life. Angel is incredibly smart and resourceful. She also cares deeply for her friends and the population in general and feels a responsibly to protect others. She even does really well when dealing with characters that are trying to be difficult because she is able to keep a focus on what is really important. I really enjoy being in her head as she tries to figure things out as much as I enjoy the action packed scenes.

Allison McLemore does a fantastic job with this whole series. I know that I liked this entire series a bit more because I decided to go the audio route. The narrator really takes this story to a new level. Angel really comes to life through the narration and I thought she did an equally good job with all of the other character voices. I think that the narrator was able to put a lot of emotion into the story and made things more exciting overall.

I would highly recommend this series to others. The entire series is just a whole lot of fun. I did feel like this book's ending felt a little more final than the previous installments but I have my fingers crossed that we will see more of Angel very soon. show less