Everyone has heard the phrase "Don't judge a book by its cover." It's good advice, except when it comes to, well, books. Covers are essential to readers- you can tell a lot by a cover. For example, the cover of this book immediately betrayed the fact that it was self-published, and that the content would be poorly edited, to say nothing of the actual quality of the writing.

A Girl And Her Cat is set in the United States, and opens with a zombie attack, witnessed by a young girl and her father. After her father turns, the young girl, Thalia, is forced to survive with her cat Fiona. Somewhat conveniently, her father taught her how to shoot, build fires, trap food, find water etc.

Meanwhile, ex-Marine Jack is hiding out in a farmhouse, wondering why he's bothering to survive, and contemplating the pointless of war.

Inevitably, the two meet, and band together against the hordes of undead. They make their way towards a Marine base, which they've been told is a safe haven for survivors.

It's a relatively good idea, ruined by poor writing, which is further let down by a complete lack of editing. A few typos in a book is forgiveable, but this book is riddled with them. I don't think there's a single hyphen in the book, the words 'where' and 'were' are constantly mixed up; the errors go beyond simple typos to full-on grammatical and syntax errors which render passages barely intelligble.

The third-person narration switches between past and present tense in about a dozen locations. There are no italics or quotation marks to distinguish between narration and a character's thoughts, so it's often very difficult to tell which is which, and the book reads as the author's rant against religion and war.

The characters' journey to and life at the survivors' camp is a great idea- the quest for these camps is a feature in the majority of zombie films and books. Unfortunately, stilted narration and dialogue make the book very difficult to read.

The book opens inside the mind of a man about to become a zombie- the implication is that this is Zombie 0. The passion and intensity isn't there though, and the writing lets down what should be a scary, intense passage.

The characters are simply bizarre. Thalia possesses some kind of magical/spiritual power, inherited from her mother and grandfather who are Native American. Her power manifests itself simply as strong empathy, until a crucial moment when she conveniently develops deadly skills. Thalia is a sweet, innocent child who happens to be incredibly skilled at survival, until it benefits the story for her to be sly and ruthless.

Jack swings back and forth between hating war and desperately wanting to help his fellow Marines. He often muses on the pointlessness of war, but that doesn't stop him participating in it.

The book reads like a polemic against war, then against consumerism (the zombies seem to be a metaphor for people who mindlessly consume material goods), then against religion (the zombies also act as a metaphor for people driven to bloodlust by their religious beliefs), part discussion of the honour and glory of the Marine Corps.

Really, there are too many things going on in the book, and the poor writing does none of them justice.