3.5/5

CW (that I can think of) under the tag: self harm, self harm imagery, sexual assault, cult

I really enjoyed this book. Plenty of tense and exciting zombie action and nuanced protagonists fighting for the future of humanity. Also a love triangle, of which I am not the biggest fan.

Loved Delilah the pit bull who is alive and barking at the end of the book.
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I liked this book. If you have been following my reviews, you might have noticed that I have been of a zombie kick lately so this book really did appeal to me. There were some things that I really liked about the story and a few things that I could have done without. It was an overall enjoyable read with enough action to really keep the pages turning for me. I am glad that I took a chance and decided to read this one.

My favorite parts of the book were the scenes involving zombies. There were some parts that had a lot of action and the descriptions were so well done that I had no trouble visualizing some pretty complex scenes. I had a pretty hard time setting the book down during any of these scenes. I also thought that the two settlements featured in the book were well done. They were both pretty unique living situations. I could completely imagine a city like the one at the start of this book becoming real if the world was put into an apocalypse situation. The second group was scary from the start largely because it felt like it could happen.

I knew going into this book that romance would come into play. I like romance and think that it often works well in this genre. I hate to say that the romantic aspect of this story didn't really work for me. I didn't really feel any chemistry between the characters and some parts of the story that just got bogged down with relationship drama. I am not a big fan of love triangles and I think that the romance in this story would have worked so much better if the focus could have stayed on two people. The fact that one party in the love triangle is married to someone else just didn't sit well with me either.

I thought that the world-building was well done in this book. I especially enjoyed all of the parts of this world that were a little different than other zombie books. I thought that the group's mission was worthwhile and liked learning a bit about the origin of the outbreak. The characters were also well done. The group was just the right size with a nice variety of personalities.

I would recommend this book to zombie fans and think that many might enjoy it a bit more than I did. I did think that the relationship drama calmed down by the end of the book and wouldn't hesitate to give the next book in the series a try.

I received an advanced review copy of this book from the author. ( )