The First Days

I don't read a lot of horror. Well to be honest, I don't read any horror. But Giselle at Xpresso Reads really loves this series, and I've been meaning to read it for a while. When I discovered my local library has a copy of The First Days, I rushed out to grab it. This action filled book does not disappoint, cleverly managing to portray all the horror of the zombie apocalypse without freaking me out. It features very real relationships and raw human emotions as the characters struggle to survive in a world gone mad.

The two female protagonists of the this book are a powerful and witty duo, who ensnared my heart early on. They have both been through hell and are now one another's only source of support. In the gritty and horrifying first show more chapter we meet Jenni, who has watched her husband eat, yes eat, their toddler and attack their teenaged son, and now her whole family is trying to kill her. She is rescued by Katie: a strong, stubborn woman who hears her screams and picks her up. Thus begins the ultimate test of survival for our leading ladies.

I liked Katie a lot. She is the person I want around me when the zombie apocalypse comes - one is almost guaranteed survival because of her quick thinking and lightening reflexes, combined with her seemingly unending compassion for those around her. Katie is also gay, which throws a lot of people. I love how Frater explores the misconceptions and sometimes idiotic ideas people generally have about the homosexual community in a gentle and yet clear manner. Some people around Katie treat as though they have nothing in common with her or that they expect her to act irrationally or something and it's really bizarre but also eye-opening.

However, I found myself quickly tiring of Jenni. She is like a vine, needing someone strong to hold her up and provide with a sense of self worth. She has almost zero self esteem, but discovers early on that she has a knack for shooting the undead in the head. She wrings between extremes of emotion and generally acts more than a little crazy, earning her the nickname 'Loca'. She is easily attracted to any strong man she meets, and becomes jealous at the mere sight of any female. Jenni is possessive of Katie, not wanting anyone else to become Katie's friend and always seeking to reassure herself that she is still Katie's best friend, like a ten year old.

The plot of the book is amazing - while there aren't many lulls, it doesn't seem like things go wrong just for the sake of providing action for the plot. Everything that happens is explained and has plausible causes. A lot of the horror in the book comes not from the zombies, but from human moments with the survivors. These moments highlight how much the world has changed and how horrible it all is. The zombies eating and killing and being killed is gory, but I did not find it particularly scary.

If you're tired of repetitive story lines in YA or looking for an explosive read, I highly recommend The First Days to you. I think a lot of people will be pleasantly surprised by this book, and it's definitely fresh in its subject matter and outlook, which I love. I have requested copies of books 2 and 3 from my library, so hopefully I can continue this wonderful series in the near future.

You can read more of my reviews at Speculating on SpecFic. show less

It's not really a new idea for a zombie book, as it is pretty straight-forward zombie killing and surviving, but I feel that Rhiannon Frater really made it her own. One of the greatest aspects of this book is that the protagonists are two women. It is a wonderful thing to read about two strong women doing what they must to survive and battling back zombie hordes on their own. These two ladies, Jenni and Katie, are lucky to make it through the first wave of the zombocolypse. After living under the thumb of a domineering and abusive husband, Jenni has difficulty standing on her own two feet. She clings to the safety and strength that Katie provides for her as they travel across Texas looking for a safe haven away from the big cities. show more While Jenni is determined to rescue her stepson, Jason, to make up for the loss of her other two sons (which she witnessed being eaten by her former husband), Katie is dealing with the regret that she harbors over losing her beloved wife Lydia that same morning. These two women quickly form a bond that is insurmountable by anything going on around them. They are their new family now and will take care of each other no matter the cost.

Once they get to the refugee town of Ashley Oaks, the reader is introduced to a whole new cast of characters. Every one of them is so distinct in their personality. The group tries to form a new life as best they can in the fortified town, but as time goes on, there is a distinct personality shift in both Jenni and Katie. While Jenni turns into female Rambo, wanting to kill everything in sight and ask questions later, Katie becomes extremely depressed once she actually has time to breather and realize that she has lost her one true love.

The First Days is an action-packed, no frills, zombie novel. I think that if you are a fan of zombie movies, than you will most certainly love this book. It is disturbing and gory at times, but what can I say, that's what I love about it. It isn't afraid to be real, and I can't help but feel that when the zombocolypse does come, this is how its going to go down. I am happy to have this book right next to Zombie Survival Guide on my shelf, and I absolutely cannot wait until the next in the series comes out to find out what happens to the people I feel like I've been through this entire ordeal with. I applaud Ms. Frater for never giving up and her original fans for getting the word out on this amazing internet sensation. show less

The First Days by Rhiannon Frater is the first book in her zombie trilogy, As the World Dies. It’s been awhile since I have read a “zombie book” and I have to say that I quite enjoyed this one. I find these kind of fantasy/thrillers very good escape reading. While Frater really didn’t bring anything new to the genre, she provided an exciting, page turning story and a group of characters to root for. Two women are front and centre in this story, Katie and Jenni, and it was fun to see how they grew from terrified victims to kick-ass, gun toting, zombie bashing heroines.

The story follows Katie and Jenni as they escape from a heavily populated city and find sanctuary in a small, roughly fortified Texas town. With the men show more outnumbering the women, and many of the man being young and single, it isn’t long before romance breaks out. Things don’t always run smoothly however, as both Katie and Jenni are recovering from the zombie death of their spouses. While the book doesn’t end on a cliff-hanger, there are enough unsolved issues that have me looking forward to the next book.

While The First Days deals with zombies in a very familiar way, and there isn’t a lot of emotional depth to explore, I still found the story compelling enough to clear my mind of the real life difficulties we are currently facing. show less

Don't Mess With -- BRAAAAAAAAINS!!!

The Zombocalypse has arrived, and survival is as much a matter of dumb luck as it is skill and cunning - a fact quickly established in the first few pages of The First Days. Texas prosecutor Katie is on her way to work when the traffic procession in which she's stuck is swarmed by a group of the undead. Katie barely manages to escape with her life, thanks to an older gent in a pickup who sacrifices his meat suit for hers. Katie races home, only to find her beloved wife Lydia eviscerating the mailman. She takes off in confused horror, and serendipitously crosses paths with Jenni, a long-suffering housewife whose abusive husband Lloyd has just made a meal of their children. In a very Thelma & Louise show more moment, the two women embark on a road trip, traversing the rural Texas countryside in search of Jenni's surviving stepson, Jason, and a safe place to call home.

The First Days: As the World Dies is a solid enough zombie story that, for whatever reason, stopped just short of sucking me in. The story - a kind of cross between The Walking Dead, The Zombie Survival Guide, and every Romero movie ever made - primarily focuses on the tenuous task of rebuilding while swarms of zombies continue to beat down your door. The logistical planning - of which there's more than a little - didn't interest me so much, but I loved the many pop culture references. Frater's obviously a huge fan of the genre. Originally self-published, the Tor reprint maintains some of that indie feel (and not in a bad way). Puzzling, though, are the many punctuation errors that managed to make it into the new version: missing periods, spaces both before and after periods, etc.

The book's real strength is in its diversity of characters. Katie is a bisexual woman who, at different times and for different reasons, leaves people to their assumptions that she's either heterosexual or a lesbian. Frater explores the hateful attitudes, harassment, and even violence directed at gay women, as well as the discrimination leveled at bi persons from both the straight and gay communities. Through Jenni, Frater also shines a light at the dynamics of interpersonal violence. Katie and Jenni form a swift and strong bond that, while far from flawless, offers a positive example of female relationships. The cast is ethnically diverse as well: Nerit is a former female Israeli sniper; Juan and Belinda are Mexican-American; and, if I'm not mistaken, the city manager Max is African-American. (I'm starting to wish I'd bought the ebook - a Kindle search function would come in mighty handy right now.) Frater isn't afraid to place "a heroine in the hero's role" (in Jenni's words) - or multiple heroines, as the case may be.

I cringed when she introduced Jake the dog - but (spoiler alert!) the dog doesn't get it! Or at least not in this first volume of the trilogy. I can't exactly vouch for Fighting to Survive or Siege.

I'm on the fence about the rest of the series: The First Days took a rather dark and jarring turn in the final few pages that grabbed my interest. The rest of the book was a quick and entertaining read, but probably not something I'll revisit in the future.

http://www.easyvegan.info/2014/01/08/the-first-days-as-the-world-dies-by-rhianno... show less

OH. MY. GOD. Where do I start? From the very FIRST paragraph- I was hooked!

Jenni- with an 'i' is standing on her front porch staring at "tiny fingers" trying to claw their way out from underneath the front door. Her terror IS MY terror from the very beginning, as she recounts the events of her family being transformed into flesh eating zombies before her very eyes.

Her abusive husband had come home the night before claiming that a homeless man had bitten him, slept on the couch and Jenni was awakened by the terrifying screams of her 3 year old son being eaten by his father. (Literally- I am almost trembling just remembering it.)

As Jenni is standing, paralyzed with fear and shock on her porch as her 12 year old 'now ZOMBIE' son is about show more to break through the window- Katie, a stranger in a beat-up white pick-up truck flies into her yard yelling for her to get in the truck.

Jenni barely makes it into the truck as her once precious son, whose last act was unknowingly sacrificing himself to his zombie father in his mother's place.

Amidst the chaos that has now claimed the United States, there are few places of sanctuary for the 'living'. After Katie and Jenni risk their lives and save Jenni's step-son, they make their way to Ashley Oaks (Um WIN... Fab choice in names!)

In Ashley Oaks... comes Travis (the name 'Travis' says it all doesn't it?) The picture of perfection- but which woman will he fall for? Killing zombies, going on rescue missions... in the midst of a Zombie Apocalypse is there even a chance for romance?

There is nowhere to go. There is no escape. The zombies are everywhere. The First Days is terrifyingly realistic and vividly horrifying, this book is feverish and electrifying- AMAZING in every sense of the word. show less

At the heart of it, aren't most zombie books/movies the same? The crisis starts and the challenge becomes dodging flesh eaters while reuniting and rediscovering humanity. One of the things I love about the apocalypse is that everyone is prey. Division of sexes, ages, races, sexualities all become so arbitrary when it's human versus undead. What do people do then? Further divide or overcome difference?

This book? Cherry Twizzlers all the way, baby. You know, you eat one and it's cherry goodness, so maybe you have another because you're hungry and are working a 12 hour shift. Kind of satisfying to chomp on. And before you know it, you've eaten half a bag of licorice and suddenly feel vaguely ill, still hungry and wondering why on earth you show more ate all that licorice?

For a nice overview, check Andrea's review: http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/322571578 She's right, characterization is rather awful. There's numerous logical problems and there's a large helping of zombie tropes. Word choice was simple and at the proverbial sixth-grade level of adult eduction material. There was a terribly awkward four-way love/sex interest. And yet.

And yet I still couldn't put it down, except when I had to take a break because I was getting too apprehensive about the hordes of zombies chasing our heroines.

I guess if you include zombies, a married lesbian and a German shepherd puppy, I can forgive a lot. show less

The First Days started kind of iffy for me. It ended kind of iffy for me too. There were things I liked about this book, but unfortunately there will be a lot more complaining in this review than praising. There were a lot of technical issues, and as I read an older copy of this book, there's a good chance this book may have been further edited, but I have to write my review based on what I read.

I hated the dialogue in this book. Especially at the beginning. Either it got better the more that I read, or I just got used to it. But it was super choppy in the beginning and the dialogue tags were excessively excessive. It was an issue of editing. Too many dialogue tags will jolt a reader out of the story and make the writing seem show more amateurish. For me, it really interrupted the flow of the narrative and kept me from getting as involved in the story as I could have. So right off the bat, I was annoyed with this book.

Then there were the exorbitant amount of adverbs: Katie said softly, Katie said firmly, Jenny nodded thoughtfully...etc. It was really obvious too. Every page was loaded with adverbs. I have a feeling this was Rhiannon Frater's first book, and to be honest, it was kind of obvious. I am sure she learned how to fix these issues the more that she wrote, but there were a lot of beginner's mistakes made here.

Then there was this (quote taken from the book): I noticed at least five gallons of extra gas loaded up in those red canisters in the back of your pickup." I rolled my eyes after reading that. I might be the only one saying this, but I think it's a bit too convenient to have extra gas just laying around in the back of trucks during a zombie invasion.

The plot was fine. A bit more telling v. showing than I would have preferred, but I enjoyed it. I didn't find it anything special, but it was a solid zombie book with a decent amount of suspense. I was left feeling disappointed because almost everyone I know loved this book and I felt like I was missing something. The plot did not blow me away like it did so many others. And I think a lot of that had to do with the fact that I found most of the characters pretty flat. And the one character that wasn't flat was one of the most annoying characters I have ever had the agony of encountering.

Jenni. Oh Jenni. I wish you would take a long walk off a short pier. You seem to be one of those characters that readers either love or hate. But I could not stand you. The things you did and the things you said...made no sense. I understand that your life was difficult. I don't even blame you for being glad you got away from your abuser of a husband. But your kids just got killed and turned into zombies yesterday. They are out somewhere roaming around, eating people. And here you are, worried about Katie flirting with Travis. Worrying about whether or not Travis likes you. Regretting saving the town librarian from zombies just because she is pretty and intelligent. You said some pretty catty things about her, and I don't much care for catty women. You're a lousy mother and a shitty friend. I don't like you. I kind of think some of the things you did were over-the-top and not something a real human would do, and that would be the author's fault. But for the most part, I just wasn't a fan of your personality. I had a hard time getting into any scene you were in. I wanted the zombies to eat you. But somehow, on top of all your annoying characterizations, you were a zombie killing badass. That's the one thing about you that I liked. I really hope in future books you become more likable.

Look, I really like zombie books. So will I read the next one? Yes. Did I have a lot of problems with this book? YES. But do I think the series has the potential to get better? Absolutely. I'm not in a hurry to read the next book, but when I get around to it, I will gladly read it. It was suspenseful, fun, and gory. show less