Since childhood, Nila Carter was made to spend every weekend at the family cabin. In her teenage years she believed it to be a prison. As an adult it became her sanctuary and means to survive. When a mysterious outbreak occurs in India, Nila’s brother, Bobby, a virologist with the CDC, places the family on a precautionary alert to be ready to bug out. Unlike anything he’s ever seen, the rabies-like virus is not only deadly but causes extreme violent behavior in anyone who becomes infected. Following her brother’s advice, Nila begins to stockpile. After months of preparing, just as it seems the virus is over, everything implodes and Bobby informs them to leave the city. With her family, Nila heads to the mountains and to her father’s isolated cabin. There she is eventually joined by friends and strangers, all hoping to safely stay clear of the virus that grips the world. While there, the group forms a tight bond, feeling secure that they will beat the extinction event and in due course return home. As time moves on, Nila quickly learns there are things they cannot run from.
Honestly the biggest problem with this book is the protagonist is a complete idiot. It's like she automatically looks for the dumbest possible response to any given event. I feel like the author was trying to make her look compassionate, but she just comes across like a fool. *spoiler* You've just been told by your cdc expert brother you have to leave immediately because the deadly virus that turns people hyper violent is spreading out of control and the govt is about to start locking down cities? Better go check out that car accident. There is a good chance a stray dog is infecting dozens of people with an incurable virus with a 100% mortality race? Better try and stop them killing the dog because 'you can't be sure'. Taking in a child from the camp fill of infected people? Better send her to play with your kids without so much as a bath. I got so sick of her I couldn't finish the book.
My rating is 3.5 stars. I’m going to leave jumping into the next book for now.. maybe I’ll come back to this series down the track.
My Dead World is the first full length book in ( My Dead World ) series by new to me author Jacqueline Druga.
If ever I hit a funk or need some heart pounding moments I always seem to run back to this genre, this series and new to me author has been recommended numerous times, so it’s about time I jump in…I can read a post apocalyptic book within a day, a romance book generally takes me two days!! So yeah this one was inhaled and it wasn't a short book by any means.
When shit literally hits the fan and Bobby, a virologist with the CDC, Nila's brother urges her (mother of two, and husband Paul) and the family (father and stepmother) to head up to the families secluded self contained cabin, you better listen, beforehand when he forewarned her that things weren't right in the word she was driving up there and adding to their supplies to allow them to live as a group on the rations for a while as they wait it out.
Arriving at the cabin a man is there seeking refuge from the outside threat, he was turned away from the campground nestled beside their cabin and was told by the owner of the camp where the key was and to let himself in adding to the families group, although this won't be the last person seeking refuge and the group becomes larger as the camp is overtaken by the virus and many are dead, dying or wanting a safer place to stay.
But their cabin isn't without it's own heartbreak and it comes in waves as loss after loss takes loved ones along the way.
The only niggle I had with this book is I wanted to feel more of an emotional connection towards Nila, because what she endures should've hit hard, I needed to feel a wee bit more from her and stay within those moments longer than we did because it left me feeling disappointed and disconnected towards her character. I know she had to stay strong, but private moments she could've raged against the world, grieved freely, visited those plots, I needed more. Much more than the robotic responses we got.
This close knit family made so many mistakes which reflected in the tally up of deaths laid at their doorstep. Number one rule, you don't let outsiders into your safe haven, you don't go and interact with the residing campsite especially with the rate they were dying. A few dumb decisions really cost them..
'My Dead World' (Book #1 of the My Dead World series) is a fantastic character driven zombie book. There is also a lot of great zombie human vs. zombie confrontations. The plot centers around Nila Carter (wife and mother of two young daughters) who is in disbelief and reluctant to heed her virologist brother's warnings about what is happening as he was on the front lines trying to help diagnose the cause of why people who became ill with some unknown pathogen quickly progressed to becoming so enraged they were violently attacking any and everybody who crossed their paths. Finally, Nila's father (a superior marksman) and her family flee to what they think will be a safer domain to wait it out. The group gets larger, with some old friends as well as unknown people being added along the way. What ensues is like nothing they could have imagined - suffering heartbreaking losses before realizing that trying to help people who were infected was a death sentence. Through it all they keep fighting and learn some hard lessons about their new and uncompromising existence. At the end the group is much smaller, but their bond is stronger than ever - their shared heartaches the driving force pushing them on to find a way of putting a stop to what has robbed them of so much. Narrator Vanessa Johansson does a great job with both the female and male voices. Each character has their own individual voice which makes it easy to differentiate who is speaking and made this an all-around exciting listening experience.
When I rate a book four stars, I may be talking about the quality of the writing, or the quality of the entertainment. This is an entertainment rating. We know that a book that blends a straight up worldwide pandemic with the zombie apocalypse probably won't contend for a major fiction prize, but it sure can be really fun to read. So if this is your gig, go for it. There are two additional books in this series also and I will give you a major **WARNING** here. Do NOT read the reviews of the third book. Another reader totally SPOILS it. I commented and asked her to edit it and make it an actual spoiler alert, but I am not hopeful. This was published in 2016 and the similarities of how it spread at the outset were pretty familiar to us all by now. And oddly enough, COVID did nothing to diminish the fun in this book because it is really is what I like I guess. Side note: I have placed a moratorium on sad books about abuse, genocide and other unhappy topics for my book club for the next six months because half of us just couldn't take more of it right now! Bring on the happy books! Anyway, this book is about how a normal family goes about trying to survive the end of the world. They do smart things, they do dumb things, some die and some live to go on to the next book. It was a good read.
I started this book and couldn’t get into it so I set it aside. A few days later I tried again and didn’t want to put it down. I’m a mood reader and as one I sometimes need to start a book a few times. It is rarely because of the writing. In this case it definitely was just me. Once I got into the story, I was fascinated. I loved how the virus and what was happening unfolded. I thought it was pretty realistic with reactions. There were a few hard places for me. I had my heart in my throat more than once. I also felt it break more than once. I never heard of this author before coming across the story. Now I need to find more books by her. If you enjoy apocalyptic books you should give this one a try. It is one of the most interesting books I have read lately on a pandemic crisis.
There are sentences with missing words, and many, many punctuation errors. There are so many that the story was lost in the mistakes. The result was an annoying read. Do NOT publish a book with such shoddy proof-reading.
Throughout this entire series there is a severe disconnect between love, loss, & family. The words are there, but the feelings and actions that should have been exhibited are not and the decisions that should have been made, weren't.
The emotional responses are flat. It's especially bad between the mom, Nila, & her 2 daughters. Her responses are nonsensical and she seems fine with constantly leaving her kids for someone, anyone, else to watch. Excuse me, but this IS the apocalypse. Why she wasn't more strict with them, for their safety, I'll never understand. She consistently underrated the danger, and makes inane decisions. 2 of which have deadly and/or dangerous consequences.
She helps take in refugees from a camp that was overrun by this disease, moves them, but doesn't Quarantine them? A little girl who had held and petted an infected dog is taken straight back to the home her daughters are living in, and not so much as BATHED before she simply joins in to play with Nila's kids. This parent should be awarded a medal for being the biggest idiot to ever give birth.
She had ample opportunity to get info from her "brilliant" CDC brother, but doesn't. That same brilliant brother is too damned dumb to TELL his sister what's really going on. How can you adequately prepare for anything if you don't have the information to base those decisions on? Yes, yes, I know CDC = government agency = gag order, etc... But, come on! You wouldn't tell your family what's coming?
Her "conflict" with her supposed BFF from childhood is ridiculous. And the "kind of" strained friendship, possible, future romance just doesn't gel. It's just awkward through the entire series.
I listened to the Audible audiobook. Another reviewer wrote - "the main character had the emotional attitude of a houseplant." That was a spot on comment. The character is the mother of 2 children and yet she is portrayed as having the maturity and interests of a teenager:
-her husband is killed with a hammer when he turns into a zombie. She hardly seems sad and within a day she's more interested in these two peripheral men in her life than how her children are doing. -she says to one of these men, less than a week after her husband's horrendous death, "how are you doing. I've been worried about you." -she's evaluating the reason for the dissolution of a childhood friend
It's fine to not be caring but this takes things to an unbelievable level which ultimately made the book a failure.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
I wanted to like this book so much but the selfishness of the main character Niles baffled me. She'd rather see people suffer than give them a quick painless death just so SHE could feel better. The whole book was about how spoiled she was even I wanted her to grow the F*** up. Plus they were always drinking. Page after page they drank. I can't believe grown ass woman,much less a mother can't cook for her own kids!? Stupid selfish woman.
Over the course of the month the shit hits the fan. Luckily for heroine Nila her brother works for the CDC and is able to forewarn her about this extremely threatening virus. It becomes clear the world may be coming to an end. Not only do her brothers warnings help, their father being somewhat of a prepper and owning a secluded cabin becomes their sanctuary and a place for people to convene. This book holds no punches and people are brazenly killed left and right, some who I really did not see coming as I guess I kind of had hope. Lesson learned. The world is still going to shit in the end so I’m wondering if the next book will still follow Nila and the scant few survivors. Hate to say it but hopefully they become more vigilant and more cautious with inviting people in!
This was quite an emotional start to the series. The events would have been startling a few years ago but with the Ebola and Coronavirus coming out it’s all so very believable.
I really enjoy this zombie tale. Sometimes authors advertise a book as a bio-thriller when the virus or whatever only takes up a few minutes of the book, or very clearly is used only as an easy excuse for what the author really wanted to write about. Instead, the virus causing this particular zombie plague is much more interesting. It has effects and details that have a large impact on the events of the story and that alter how the characters choose to act. Also, the rate of infection in the two camps is hugely different, prompting the characters to learn more about their new friends-turned-enemies.
I like the zombies; they have a bit of complexity all their own. The characters gradually come to realize that they’re fighting at least two types of zombies, and they have to figure out what on earth is causing that and how it affects them.
Of course there’s an ongoing argument as to how to handle people who come down with the infection, and that’s one of the biggest, toughest plotlines to read. It’s hard to think about–at what stage do you kill someone? If you wait until they’re all-zombie, you’re risking that they’ll infect someone else. But if you kill before then, aren’t you killing friends and family? It’s a tough question that doesn’t have a good answer.
There are plenty of opportunities for things to go wrong. I love the characters; they have a great deal of depth to them. I shed a few tears at one infection case. I loved some of the old hurts that come up, particularly between Nila and Lev.
If you’re looking for a zombified bio-thriller that’s a bit more interesting than the usual, and have an interest in survivalism/preppers, I think you’d enjoy this one.
How on earth are people rating this book 4 stars???? This book is poorly written and poorly edited. If I didn't know any better I would have assumed this book was self published. The quality of the writing is fan fiction level at best, but to be honest it's like something my teenage self could have written. The characters have no depth to them whatsoever and they constantly contradict themselves (in words and in actions). Not to mention things just seem to automatically happen with no interesting lead in to build up tension, or to give the story depth, and items (or help) always seem to magically appear just in time. Because it's written in the first person narrative, the protagonist is constantly assuming what others around her are thinking or feeling. It's so horribly written I couldn't force myself to finish it, and that's rare for me. Utter garbage. Don't waste your time on this one.
The beginning of this book was a bit disjointed and chaotic. It took me a while to get into the rhythm of this story and the characters. To be honest, the main character was emotionally so disconnected, I had a hard time sympathising with her decisions and actions. Her thought process was at times the opposite from her actions and I simply didn’t hold her in much esteem. Most of her careless decisions let to a disaster that could have been simply avoided. The author didn’t paint her really in a good light.
There were simply too much grammar and vocabulary errors to not title it a lousy work to not have that proof-read upfront. It was so much it interfered with the reading flow.
Some aspects of the story I found really spot on like pool boy, others were simply idiotic and predictable, like watching a train wreck in slow motion.
I read this book on a whim because I like the post apocalyptic genre. "My Dead World" follows the usual formula for the most part. It is compelling and interesting at times. There is too much grief and death (of course I should have known that's what I signed up for) which the characters seem to get past too quickly - despite lip service dialog to the contrary. Maybe if everyday is life and death grief is processed faster? The question of the risk of compassion versus survival only is addressed. I hated the ending.
I just love an author who makes her characters suffer. This author made sure that her readers got violence, blood and Gore. The main character she was indecisive whether she was going to be violent or passive. Not once did she take the reigns and fight for her family and I was disappointed in her. She mAde her emotions make the decisions and that didn't end up so good. However I'm glad that the author didn't have an qualms about her characters.
I have read quite many of these post-apocalyptic books and this was by far the most frustrating. Character decisions are unlogical and occasionally plain stupid. This makes me not care about the characters. It is also hard to believe that the main family is preppers because of their constant mistakes in general survival skills. Also, I find it hard to believe any of the characters would be alive after a week, based on the lack of preparation they make when interacting with the sick.
This has both good & bad people in it. The characters are presented as how I think real people would act. Scared & very frightened of what could happened to them & their loved ones. Yet they act human not super human just human, most doing the best they can under the circumstances.
Very well written, with characters the average person can relate to. The world quickly falls apart when a virus spreads. From a mothers view, an extremely memorable story.
Although some might say this is another zombie book, I disagree. It is a zombie book, but not like the others, there is a different concept. Things are explained about the zombies that make sense and that makes it different. I really enjoyed the narrator, Kelsey Navarro did a fantastic job making me feel as though I were there. I hate sterile narrators. Jacqueline Druga, I loved this book, I love how you think and enjoyed how little bits of your personality came out in the characters, or so I think it was a bit of you. Well done, this book is easily placed on my favorites shelf, and books I can read over and over. Now I will be starting Book 2.
Sometimes, everything just works..and in this take on viruses and the end of humanity as we know it, it does..it really does. I love how real and flawed Druga made these characters..I felt all that they felt, navigating their way through their new reality of the virus ridden undead. Nila our H, her husband, 2 daughters, Father and Step Mother recieve information from the CDC via Nilas Brother Bobby that shit is about to go down, he sends them a sat phone and credit card and tells them to stock up and get ready to evac to the family cabin in the hills when he sends word.
Loss and death follow quickly as civilization falls apart, but in their cabin they hope to escape the worst of it...but a campground nearby run by old friends makes that seemingly impossible. I love a good apocalypse book and this one is up there among my favourites..off now to read book 2
Possible spoiler alert: a rapidly spreading virus has become an epidemic. It's a story of choices with difficult decisions, survival, and just a little hope thrown in as a rapidly-speading virus that (to me) seemed to be a combo of rabies plus Ebola devastates the population. There is a second in the series which I may try to get from the library. Soon.
This is an extremely dark book. A virus erupts in India. It causes people to become vicious and violent while, at the same time, their bodies decay. In the United States there is a family that has trained for disasters and they move with their supplies to a cabin away from the city.
Things get worse very, very quickly and before long there is a zombie-type outbreak. The story follows the family, how they try to set up defenses around their cabin, how everything around them goes to hell in a hand basket and how the deaths end up getting personal.
It becomes evident that many millions if not billions of people are dying, infecting others before they die. There is some military presence left but not much. Town after town has become with everyone that had been there either dead or having left while they could.
The ending is sort of ambiguous although there is another book in the series which probably adds more explanations. The book is written well but, as I said, it is extremely dark.
My review is based off both books in the series...
I flew through this 2 book series. The story was freaking fantastic and the characters were amazing. I go through phases where I need a good zombie story and this read was exactly what I needed. Even more so. Druga is a master creator of the undead and the world she envisioned was absolutely perfect. These were my first two books by the author and will definitely not be the last. I have found another new favorite zombie author to quench my zombie fix. 5 Stars!!