This book is the last instalment of “The Book of Riley”. While I still loved this one, I was a bit disappointed- I still gave it 4 stars because I absolutely adore this series. I do have some thoughts:
I feel like this one was too short. It left a lot unanswered and a bit of a cliffhanger that I’m left wondering if Mark Tufo has some future plans for Riley (cause honestly I’m so down with more Riley!) Here’s why:
🐶 Riley- Riley is basically Lassie if she was a badass smacked in the middle of a zombie apocalypse. She’s incredibly intelligent,that multiple characters point out how special she is. She is able to win over multiple people along with making plenty of human enemies. Even making friends with a bear, Thorngrip. In the beginning of the short, Riley is talking with her former housemate before her journey into the afterlife, George- an English bulldog who died shortly after she was introduced to her human family. He tells her that her role in the world isn’t done yet, and she has more to do. At first I was assuming getting her family to safety, but when she finally gets there ThornGrip warns that there is a dark energy surrounding the home where her family is and that they shouldn’t stay there. Then boom! That’s it! Game over! Is there more to this series or an adjacent series I should read?
🐈 Patches and Death- In a few of the volumes it is mentioned by Patches that she can detect death- a dark aura that settles around a person who is close to death or very ill. Patches tells this to Riley in Volume 2 when she notices it with the character of Winky and later, she says that she can see Death taking people’s lives. There is definitely something deeper happening here than just a zombie apocalypse. Also did anyone else think Patches was going to abandon her family at any point or sell them out to the zombies? She was so sketchy- especially when Riley was separated from them, and her reluctance to find her, which was obviously due to jealousy. And what she did to Icely… she just knew her bite would become infected? The man was in a compound- where Antibiotics were probably easily available. I thought she was a zombie virus carrier for a while (which would’ve been a cool twist), well until she bit Jess but she didn’t get an infection. I don’t know Patches gave me such bad vibes in the last few volumes.
👶🏻 Zack- I believe it is also in volume two or three where Zack is able to communicate with Riley and the others, but cannot with his sister. In the series Zack is only starting to crawl, and his speech isn’t there yet. Eventually, it is revealed that his mom came to him as he was dying and gave him the power to do so. Riley also sees the importance of the baby that he’d eventually become something special, not unlike Riley herself. He also knew that Riley wasn’t dead after Jess was bitten and she was dying. So there is obviously an afterlife working in the background helping out the characters. Again, it is so frustrating that this series just stops dead after they get to safety.
👱🏻♀️🧟♀️- Jess’s death was a bit out of nowhere- I know there was some reviews that wanted her to die, but to me it felt very sudden. I was disappointed about her death and I was hoping for a happy ending for all of them. I think maybe the author thought that they had a horseshoe up their asses to survive so many horrific events during their travels so it only made sense someone would have to die eventually and he didn’t want it to be Riley.
🧟♂️- Also I thought it was interesting that the zombie virus didn’t infect the animals because Ben-Ben, Thorngrip and Riley were scratched,bitten and they had infected zombie viscera in their mouths multiple times, but it seemed to have no ill effects. Though,in this book we meet an older religious couple who think the animals have seemingly become more intelligent while humans have downgraded in intelligence and a lot are obviously dead. They think there’s some type of energy in the earth that Jesus used which was why he was able to conjure miracles and the more people born the more energy was being sucked up. And now that the population has been decimated by the Pandemic it has left more for the animals. Though, Riley does say she has always felt this way and humans are poor listeners (which yeah, we don’t even listen to each other) but for Riley to make friends with a bear. And then Thorngrip being perfectly fine being in the company of humans- that she would never considering attacking… but before would have without a thought… maybe the zombie virus has something to do with it?
🐻 Thorngrip and George- when Riley was taken a stroll through Purgatory(???) with George, before she was resurrected, he told her to say hi to Thorngrip for him. Was that just him being like yeah, this bear is gonna help you now? Or did he actually know her previously? We don’t get an answer for this.
In conclusion, I have enjoyed this series way more than I thought I would. It’s such a fun read and it scratched an itch for me that I haven’t been able to find for such a long time and likely, won’t find again. Like Riley, this series is one of a kind! I recommend this one to anyone who enjoys dogs and zombies!!