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Nine years ago, Jessie had a family. Now, she has a gang.
Nine years ago, Jessie was a vegetarian. Now, she eats very fresh meat.
Nine years ago, Jessie was in a car crash and died. Nine years ago, Jessie was human.
Now, she’s not.
After she was buried, Jessie awoke and tore through the earth to arise, reborn, as a zombie. Jessie’s gang is the Fly-by-Nights. She loves the ancient, skeletal Florian and his memories of time gone by. She’s in love with Joe, a maggot-infested corpse. They fight, hunt, dance together as one—something humans can never understand. There are dark places humans have learned to avoid, lest they run into the zombie gangs.
But now, Jessie and the Fly-by-Nights have seen new creatures in the woods—things not human and not zombie. A strange new illness has flamed up out of nowhere, causing the undeads to become more alive and the living to exist on the brink of death. As bits and pieces of the truth fall around Jessie, like the flesh off her bones, she’ll have to choose between looking away or staring down the madness—and hanging onto everything she has come to know as life…
Nine years ago, Jessie was a vegetarian. Now, she eats very fresh meat.
Nine years ago, Jessie was in a car crash and died. Nine years ago, Jessie was human.
Now, she’s not.
After she was buried, Jessie awoke and tore through the earth to arise, reborn, as a zombie. Jessie’s gang is the Fly-by-Nights. She loves the ancient, skeletal Florian and his memories of time gone by. She’s in love with Joe, a maggot-infested corpse. They fight, hunt, dance together as one—something humans can never understand. There are dark places humans have learned to avoid, lest they run into the zombie gangs.
But now, Jessie and the Fly-by-Nights have seen new creatures in the woods—things not human and not zombie. A strange new illness has flamed up out of nowhere, causing the undeads to become more alive and the living to exist on the brink of death. As bits and pieces of the truth fall around Jessie, like the flesh off her bones, she’ll have to choose between looking away or staring down the madness—and hanging onto everything she has come to know as life…
384 pages, Hardcover
First published September 2, 2010
46 people are currently reading
2307 people want to read
About the author
Joan Frances Turner
8 books30 followersJoan Frances Turner is the author of Dust, forthcoming from Ace Books on September 7, 2010. Dust is a story of the undead from their own point of view, as they battle time, decay, the loved ones they left behind, encroaching humanity and each other. Or, think Watership Down with zombies instead of rabbits. She is currently working on a sequel, tentatively titled Frail, from the all-important human perspective.
Joan was born in Rhode Island and grew up in the Calumet Region of northwest Indiana, which fellow Region Rat Jean Shepherd famously said “clings precariously to the underbody of Chicago like a barnacle clings to the rotting hulk of a tramp steamer.” Like Mr. Shepherd, she aspires someday to have a local community center named after her against her will. A graduate of Brown University and Harvard Law School, she lives near the beach with her family and a garden full of spring onions and tiger lilies, weather permitting.
Joan is represented by Michelle Brower of Folio Literary Management. Dust is her first novel.
(from author's website)
Joan was born in Rhode Island and grew up in the Calumet Region of northwest Indiana, which fellow Region Rat Jean Shepherd famously said “clings precariously to the underbody of Chicago like a barnacle clings to the rotting hulk of a tramp steamer.” Like Mr. Shepherd, she aspires someday to have a local community center named after her against her will. A graduate of Brown University and Harvard Law School, she lives near the beach with her family and a garden full of spring onions and tiger lilies, weather permitting.
Joan is represented by Michelle Brower of Folio Literary Management. Dust is her first novel.
(from author's website)
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 249 reviews
July 30, 2021
it is october. i am going to read a bunch of zombie books. this is the first.
and it was very okay. by now, she has written a sequel, and i am hoping that she has gotten her mythology tightened enough to allow her plot a narrow strait through which to flow, because the major problem with this one was trying to understand the rules; they seem awfully fluid and she frequently neglects to address the big picture.
quickly: so in this book, zombies can communicate with each other in a way that does not require tongues and lips and etc, but is more like a telepathic communication, and a resting state that sounds like music. okay, fine. and they dance, collectively, ritualistically, when some inner switch is thrown and they feel a compulsion. ooookay, that's fine, i am very much of the "take what you are feeling and dance it" state of mind. sure. next. even though humans ("hoos") are aware of the possibility/probability of the undead, people are still buried when they die, just "away" from civilization, even though these zombies are fast enough to catch deer and other woodland creatures. huh? were i in charge of this land, everyone would be cremated to avoid the possibility of them coming back to eat me, but i'm not - joan frances turner is, and i will go along with her rules. all of them, even if they seem silly and inconsistent.
and many are. i don't even want to go into all of them here.
but there is enough that is new and intriguing in the zombieverse to make me want to keep reading. what if there was a disease that struck, and affected both humans and zombies alike? and it made humans sick and made them resemble zombies, but it made zombies (oh, and i am apparently falling prey to a huge taboo here, as "zombie" is considered a racist term. but i am using it as a reclamation, i am writing a zombie rap song) but it made the undead stronger. regenerate. not need to eat living flesh. and that is a great twist on the living dead mythos. where do we go from here? oh, many places, each a little odder than the last. beaches, stones, death, second death, third death...no time to explain, just keep up and keep reading.
but what about..?? oh, i guess it doesn't matter.
hmmm.
if this review is scattered and unclear, i think a bit of it can be blamed on the book. it meanders, and there are about three different ending points, each more confusing than the last. i need to read the sequel, because i need to know the further-reaching ramifications of what is happening here, if she even bothers to address them. i am not positive she will, because she seems to have left many obvious questions unanswered, but...
this sounds like a negative review, but the book is fun to read, i am just trying to understand why the story is so loose and shambly and lacking in perspective.i like the idea of this mythology, i like the surface of it with the itching bugs and the pro-undead solidarity, i like knowing what happens when a vegan becomes a zombie, but it really needs to have more depth, overall.
i move on to another zombie book.
rarrr...
come to my blog!
and it was very okay. by now, she has written a sequel, and i am hoping that she has gotten her mythology tightened enough to allow her plot a narrow strait through which to flow, because the major problem with this one was trying to understand the rules; they seem awfully fluid and she frequently neglects to address the big picture.
quickly: so in this book, zombies can communicate with each other in a way that does not require tongues and lips and etc, but is more like a telepathic communication, and a resting state that sounds like music. okay, fine. and they dance, collectively, ritualistically, when some inner switch is thrown and they feel a compulsion. ooookay, that's fine, i am very much of the "take what you are feeling and dance it" state of mind. sure. next. even though humans ("hoos") are aware of the possibility/probability of the undead, people are still buried when they die, just "away" from civilization, even though these zombies are fast enough to catch deer and other woodland creatures. huh? were i in charge of this land, everyone would be cremated to avoid the possibility of them coming back to eat me, but i'm not - joan frances turner is, and i will go along with her rules. all of them, even if they seem silly and inconsistent.
and many are. i don't even want to go into all of them here.
but there is enough that is new and intriguing in the zombieverse to make me want to keep reading. what if there was a disease that struck, and affected both humans and zombies alike? and it made humans sick and made them resemble zombies, but it made zombies (oh, and i am apparently falling prey to a huge taboo here, as "zombie" is considered a racist term. but i am using it as a reclamation, i am writing a zombie rap song) but it made the undead stronger. regenerate. not need to eat living flesh. and that is a great twist on the living dead mythos. where do we go from here? oh, many places, each a little odder than the last. beaches, stones, death, second death, third death...no time to explain, just keep up and keep reading.
but what about..?? oh, i guess it doesn't matter.
hmmm.
if this review is scattered and unclear, i think a bit of it can be blamed on the book. it meanders, and there are about three different ending points, each more confusing than the last. i need to read the sequel, because i need to know the further-reaching ramifications of what is happening here, if she even bothers to address them. i am not positive she will, because she seems to have left many obvious questions unanswered, but...
this sounds like a negative review, but the book is fun to read, i am just trying to understand why the story is so loose and shambly and lacking in perspective.i like the idea of this mythology, i like the surface of it with the itching bugs and the pro-undead solidarity, i like knowing what happens when a vegan becomes a zombie, but it really needs to have more depth, overall.
i move on to another zombie book.
rarrr...
come to my blog!
October 14, 2010
Sometimes, when I give a book a middling rating, it means the book was middling throughout. This is not one of those times. I intensely disliked the first half of Dust, and it took me about a month to get through it. The second half, I loved, and read in one day.
Dust’s greatest strength — and also its greatest drawback — is that Joan Frances Turner writes description extremely well. She has the gift of evoking that one perfect image that puts you right there in the character’s mind: a dimly remembered strawberry, or a lost connection described as:
"a light shining from a farmhouse window on some dark, empty highway, streaking brightly across your windshield as you drive past, and then fading. And then gone."
It becomes a drawback when Turner conjures up, with the same skill, the imagery of human decomposition. Readers with cast iron stomachs may not mind, but many others will feel physically ill throughout much of Dust. It was a little too much for me, I confess.
Turner’s undead, who prefer not to be called zombies, are sentient and have an entire culture of their own. They communicate via radio waves when their mouths and throats can no longer form words. They have their own life cycle, starting when they tunnel up from the grave, continuing through the stages of decomposition, then culminating in a second death. It’s easy to feel pity for the undead, who retain their mental and emotional capacities but whose bodies are rotting and whose loved ones feel nothing but revulsion if they meet again. Yet this thinking is something of a trap, it turns out; many of the undead are content with their lot and don’t want their old lives back, and one human goes to appalling extremes in an attempt to “fix” someone who doesn’t want to be fixed.
Dust contains plenty of thought-provoking material, echoing several real-life controversies while (thankfully) not paralleling any one issue so closely that the book becomes a polemic. The thought-provoking elements, however, are drowned out during the first half of the book by the nauseating descriptions and by too much senseless violence. The heroine, Jessie, is in a gang, and she and her friends are constantly involved in bullying, gang hazing, intergang turf wars, and the like. I could, in a way, understand the frustrations that fueled the aggression, but I still had trouble liking the characters. The grossness hampered my experience, too, by causing me to read less closely than I should have been reading. Turner doesn’t spoon-feed anything. Many of the character conflicts are implied between the lines, and the world-building is subtle. For example, it’s clear that Turner’s world is not quite the world we know, but we’re not explicitly told when and where the divergence took place (by which I mean "when did humans become aware of zombies," not the event in the geological past). If you “step back” from the story because it’s about to make you lose your lunch, you may miss something important in the process.
At about the halfway point, Dust really sank its teeth in, pardon the bad pun. I don’t want to spoil the plot twists, but I’ll say that the gang warfare largely falls away in favor of science-gone-wrong and beautifully written musings on the nature of life and death, family and friendship. There’s still plenty of unpleasant imagery; this is easier to take, though, once the plot starts moving more quickly and the characters become more fleshed-out, plus now the icky moments are interspersed with passages of lovely prose like the one quoted above. Jessie’s plot arc is compelling, and so are the little glimpses Turner gives us of the world outside Jessie’s immediate frame of reference. So much can be conveyed by a brief mention of a skyline looking wrong.
I closed Dust with a feeling of satisfaction and an appreciation for Turner’s craft. It would be inaccurate, though, to claim that I enjoyed the book all the way through, hence the rating. Dust is worth reading (especially the second half), but to get to the best parts you’ll have to go through a lot of stomach-turning imagery. Your mileage may vary.
Review originally published at Fantasy Literature
Dust’s greatest strength — and also its greatest drawback — is that Joan Frances Turner writes description extremely well. She has the gift of evoking that one perfect image that puts you right there in the character’s mind: a dimly remembered strawberry, or a lost connection described as:
"a light shining from a farmhouse window on some dark, empty highway, streaking brightly across your windshield as you drive past, and then fading. And then gone."
It becomes a drawback when Turner conjures up, with the same skill, the imagery of human decomposition. Readers with cast iron stomachs may not mind, but many others will feel physically ill throughout much of Dust. It was a little too much for me, I confess.
Turner’s undead, who prefer not to be called zombies, are sentient and have an entire culture of their own. They communicate via radio waves when their mouths and throats can no longer form words. They have their own life cycle, starting when they tunnel up from the grave, continuing through the stages of decomposition, then culminating in a second death. It’s easy to feel pity for the undead, who retain their mental and emotional capacities but whose bodies are rotting and whose loved ones feel nothing but revulsion if they meet again. Yet this thinking is something of a trap, it turns out; many of the undead are content with their lot and don’t want their old lives back, and one human goes to appalling extremes in an attempt to “fix” someone who doesn’t want to be fixed.
Dust contains plenty of thought-provoking material, echoing several real-life controversies while (thankfully) not paralleling any one issue so closely that the book becomes a polemic. The thought-provoking elements, however, are drowned out during the first half of the book by the nauseating descriptions and by too much senseless violence. The heroine, Jessie, is in a gang, and she and her friends are constantly involved in bullying, gang hazing, intergang turf wars, and the like. I could, in a way, understand the frustrations that fueled the aggression, but I still had trouble liking the characters. The grossness hampered my experience, too, by causing me to read less closely than I should have been reading. Turner doesn’t spoon-feed anything. Many of the character conflicts are implied between the lines, and the world-building is subtle. For example, it’s clear that Turner’s world is not quite the world we know, but we’re not explicitly told when and where the divergence took place (by which I mean "when did humans become aware of zombies," not the event in the geological past). If you “step back” from the story because it’s about to make you lose your lunch, you may miss something important in the process.
At about the halfway point, Dust really sank its teeth in, pardon the bad pun. I don’t want to spoil the plot twists, but I’ll say that the gang warfare largely falls away in favor of science-gone-wrong and beautifully written musings on the nature of life and death, family and friendship. There’s still plenty of unpleasant imagery; this is easier to take, though, once the plot starts moving more quickly and the characters become more fleshed-out, plus now the icky moments are interspersed with passages of lovely prose like the one quoted above. Jessie’s plot arc is compelling, and so are the little glimpses Turner gives us of the world outside Jessie’s immediate frame of reference. So much can be conveyed by a brief mention of a skyline looking wrong.
I closed Dust with a feeling of satisfaction and an appreciation for Turner’s craft. It would be inaccurate, though, to claim that I enjoyed the book all the way through, hence the rating. Dust is worth reading (especially the second half), but to get to the best parts you’ll have to go through a lot of stomach-turning imagery. Your mileage may vary.
Review originally published at Fantasy Literature
April 4, 2011
I picked this book up on tour so I had something to read while traveling. I picked it up because Amber Benson had written a blurb for the cover, and that was enough to win my trust.
I start to read it and am pleasantly surprised. It's a zombie story told first-person from the point of view of the zombie.
I read it in one sitting that night on the train when I really should have been catching up on my sleep. It's a clever book, and I really enjoyed it.
Is it a perfect book? No. But its unique take on an old, painfully cliche piece of horror-movie history makes this more a five-star than a four-star book.
I've noticed a lot of low-star reviews here on goodreads have a redcurrant theme of: "Ugh! It was so gory! Plus there's cannibalism!"
Really, what did you expect from a first-person POV zombie story? Flower arrangement? Haiku?
I didn't find the level of gore strange or particularly off putting. Then again, it should be noted that I'm probably not a good example of an average reader....
I start to read it and am pleasantly surprised. It's a zombie story told first-person from the point of view of the zombie.
I read it in one sitting that night on the train when I really should have been catching up on my sleep. It's a clever book, and I really enjoyed it.
Is it a perfect book? No. But its unique take on an old, painfully cliche piece of horror-movie history makes this more a five-star than a four-star book.
I've noticed a lot of low-star reviews here on goodreads have a redcurrant theme of: "Ugh! It was so gory! Plus there's cannibalism!"
Really, what did you expect from a first-person POV zombie story? Flower arrangement? Haiku?
I didn't find the level of gore strange or particularly off putting. Then again, it should be noted that I'm probably not a good example of an average reader....
September 6, 2010
Review courtesy of AllThingsUrbanFantasy.blogspot.com
I don’t know that I've ever had a book make me feel as physically nauseous as I did while reading DUST. It is grotesque, gruesome, and gory from start to finish.
I’m kind of marveling at the 180 that I’ve gone through with DUST. I liked the concept of a zombie novel written from the perspective of the undead, I loved the book trailers that spoofed the old Public Service Announcements, and I still think the first line is one of the best ever: “My right arm fell off today. Lucky for me, I’m left-handed.” But I discovered before even finishing the first chapter is that there maybe a very good reason why zombies don’t always get the starring role.
DUST is intelligently written, the character of Jessie (pardon the pun) fully fleshed out, and the zombie sub culture unsettling in its realism. But, and this is a big but, the actually storyline staggers along like a rotting corpse ultimately decaying into a bizarre and confusing ending that was trying to be poignant but instead was corny and possibly ridiculous (depending on how you interpret it).
And I can’t downplay how vivid and detailed the descriptions of putrefying flesh are. There are pages and pages of sensory overload on the various stages of zombie decay from the fresh rotters, bloaters, bugs, and finally mummy-like dusters. And I’m not even going to start on the cannibalistic feasts. I’m just glad I read this book on an empty stomach:
Mags giggled from deep in what was left of her throat and Joe threw an arm around me, sprays of maggots shooting from the rips in his leather jacket like little grubworm confetti.
A lot of reviewers and authors I admire are raving about this book, praising it for how daring and real it is. No argument here on how real it is, but the daring part fell flat for me, especially the ending. More than anything else, however, is the gross factor that was so disgusting and incessant that I had to put DUST down several times while I fought to control my gag reflex. If I could give this a 1 1/2 bat rating I would, but since the writing itself is good and the world building very creative, it gets a 2 out of 5. Consider yourself warned.
Sexual Content: None
I don’t know that I've ever had a book make me feel as physically nauseous as I did while reading DUST. It is grotesque, gruesome, and gory from start to finish.
I’m kind of marveling at the 180 that I’ve gone through with DUST. I liked the concept of a zombie novel written from the perspective of the undead, I loved the book trailers that spoofed the old Public Service Announcements, and I still think the first line is one of the best ever: “My right arm fell off today. Lucky for me, I’m left-handed.” But I discovered before even finishing the first chapter is that there maybe a very good reason why zombies don’t always get the starring role.
DUST is intelligently written, the character of Jessie (pardon the pun) fully fleshed out, and the zombie sub culture unsettling in its realism. But, and this is a big but, the actually storyline staggers along like a rotting corpse ultimately decaying into a bizarre and confusing ending that was trying to be poignant but instead was corny and possibly ridiculous (depending on how you interpret it).
And I can’t downplay how vivid and detailed the descriptions of putrefying flesh are. There are pages and pages of sensory overload on the various stages of zombie decay from the fresh rotters, bloaters, bugs, and finally mummy-like dusters. And I’m not even going to start on the cannibalistic feasts. I’m just glad I read this book on an empty stomach:
Mags giggled from deep in what was left of her throat and Joe threw an arm around me, sprays of maggots shooting from the rips in his leather jacket like little grubworm confetti.
A lot of reviewers and authors I admire are raving about this book, praising it for how daring and real it is. No argument here on how real it is, but the daring part fell flat for me, especially the ending. More than anything else, however, is the gross factor that was so disgusting and incessant that I had to put DUST down several times while I fought to control my gag reflex. If I could give this a 1 1/2 bat rating I would, but since the writing itself is good and the world building very creative, it gets a 2 out of 5. Consider yourself warned.
Sexual Content: None
April 1, 2011
This book will be deeply disgusting for the average reader. It wallows in rot, cannibalism, graphic depictions of animal hunts, human decomposition, vomit, vomit and more vomit, the effects of zombie-on-zombie violence and so much more. Dwelling in the head space I do, I only got creeped out by a couple of scenes and those were scenes that discussed in depth the insect infestations the zombies dealt with. The rest, sadly, became tiresome as the novel went on because the reader gets his or her senses clubbed with all the depictions of nastiness. In a novel this foul, when such descriptions became old hat, you’re doing it wrong, as the kids say.
But until that happens, it’s a fun, nasty, sad, interesting ride. Because we don’t know what Jessie was like when she was alive, save for her anger at her parents’ terrible marriage and the way her older siblings chose to deal with it, it’s hard to know if becoming a zombie changed Jessie in significant ways. Jessie is a hard character to like because she is ruled by self-interest, has absolutely no compassion for anyone except Florian, the eldest member of her gang, and Joe, a complete jerk of a young, male zombie. Jessie is just flat-out unpleasant. It is tempting to say that she is this way because being a zombie changed her but Linc, a sensitive and nice zombie boy, shares none of Jessie’s emotional emptiness. Moreover, Linc, who was beaten to death by his parents, should have far more reason to hate the hoos and his fellow zombies, but doesn’t. One just gets the impression that had she lived, Jessie would have just become a nasty girl who dated assholes who used her. She alludes to this fact herself, and I also wonder if Jessie more or less stayed stalled at 15, even as she aged as a zombie. Nothing in the rule book says we have to have a character whose motivations make sense, who evokes in us any understanding or sense of connection, but it would have helped to have liked Jessie more. There are little glimpses of the person she was capable of being, but it was not until the end that we see any real redemption in Jessie and by then it was a bit too late. It was just too hard to care about her character arc. Moreover, as pitiless as Jessie was, it bled over into how I read this book. When your protagonist is emotionally flat except for anger, much of the book just won’t matter. Read my entire review here
But until that happens, it’s a fun, nasty, sad, interesting ride. Because we don’t know what Jessie was like when she was alive, save for her anger at her parents’ terrible marriage and the way her older siblings chose to deal with it, it’s hard to know if becoming a zombie changed Jessie in significant ways. Jessie is a hard character to like because she is ruled by self-interest, has absolutely no compassion for anyone except Florian, the eldest member of her gang, and Joe, a complete jerk of a young, male zombie. Jessie is just flat-out unpleasant. It is tempting to say that she is this way because being a zombie changed her but Linc, a sensitive and nice zombie boy, shares none of Jessie’s emotional emptiness. Moreover, Linc, who was beaten to death by his parents, should have far more reason to hate the hoos and his fellow zombies, but doesn’t. One just gets the impression that had she lived, Jessie would have just become a nasty girl who dated assholes who used her. She alludes to this fact herself, and I also wonder if Jessie more or less stayed stalled at 15, even as she aged as a zombie. Nothing in the rule book says we have to have a character whose motivations make sense, who evokes in us any understanding or sense of connection, but it would have helped to have liked Jessie more. There are little glimpses of the person she was capable of being, but it was not until the end that we see any real redemption in Jessie and by then it was a bit too late. It was just too hard to care about her character arc. Moreover, as pitiless as Jessie was, it bled over into how I read this book. When your protagonist is emotionally flat except for anger, much of the book just won’t matter. Read my entire review here
March 14, 2016
"My right arm fell off today. Lucky for me, I’m left-handed."
With a first line like that I knew I was in for an interesting read. Jessie is a teen girl who was killed by a drunk driver. Her parents also perished in the accident leaving behind her two older siblings. Months later she dug her way from her grave, and joined the ranks of the undead.
As a self-proclaimed zombie sympathizer I knew this book was a must read. FYI they prefer the term undead ;) Dust is one of those books that you can’t get out of your head. It has been days since I finished and I’m still thinking about it.
Dust is a fresh and exciting addition to zombie culture. Jessie was an excellent narrator and seemed to embrace her new life. I love books with a strong female lead, dead or not. I was drawn in by the idea that they retain their memories and even some emotions. I loved the idea that they have the ability to understand the speech of humans as well as communicate amongst themselves. Their behavior was similar to pack animals, and the bonds they formed were fascinating. This book will make you forget everything you thought you knew about zombies. An engaging plot combined with an almost poetic writing style made for late nights of reading. I don’t want to give too much away because there is so much to be discovered in this novel. It’s about time the undead told their side of the story.
This book does contain violence as well as adult language. The squeamish may want to proceed with caution. Lots of talk of decay and the likes. I must say I’ve never had the description of maggots and rot presented in such beautifully worded sentences. The author’s writing style drags you in and makes you feel like you’re experiencing it first hand. I’m thrilled to learn there will be a sequel.
Read full review on my blog: The Fiction Enthusiast
With a first line like that I knew I was in for an interesting read. Jessie is a teen girl who was killed by a drunk driver. Her parents also perished in the accident leaving behind her two older siblings. Months later she dug her way from her grave, and joined the ranks of the undead.
As a self-proclaimed zombie sympathizer I knew this book was a must read. FYI they prefer the term undead ;) Dust is one of those books that you can’t get out of your head. It has been days since I finished and I’m still thinking about it.
Dust is a fresh and exciting addition to zombie culture. Jessie was an excellent narrator and seemed to embrace her new life. I love books with a strong female lead, dead or not. I was drawn in by the idea that they retain their memories and even some emotions. I loved the idea that they have the ability to understand the speech of humans as well as communicate amongst themselves. Their behavior was similar to pack animals, and the bonds they formed were fascinating. This book will make you forget everything you thought you knew about zombies. An engaging plot combined with an almost poetic writing style made for late nights of reading. I don’t want to give too much away because there is so much to be discovered in this novel. It’s about time the undead told their side of the story.
This book does contain violence as well as adult language. The squeamish may want to proceed with caution. Lots of talk of decay and the likes. I must say I’ve never had the description of maggots and rot presented in such beautifully worded sentences. The author’s writing style drags you in and makes you feel like you’re experiencing it first hand. I’m thrilled to learn there will be a sequel.
Read full review on my blog: The Fiction Enthusiast
October 17, 2010
Do we need a book that tries to make the plight of zombies sympathetic? If the answer is this book, then definitely no. Turner is not a bad stylist, but her story here meanders between gross-out scenes, whining, and a confusing plot that jumps here and there but somehow always produces one scene after another that is the same. Worst of all, Turner tries to invest all of this with capital-M Meaning, but honestly, it's very hard to care about the teen zombie protagonist.
Also, to make the zombies sympathetic, Turner breaks tradition and gives them active brains that just can't communicate with humankind and more strength than they are usually given. This creates all kinds of plot holes. First, zombies who are this smart and strong would probably be impossible for humankind to fend off. Second, it becomes clear in some scenes that while verbal communication is difficult, these zombies could communicate with humans in other ways, such as writing. If that's so, it's hard to imagine why more communication between the species hasn't occurred.
I'm wasting too much writing about a bad book. Stay away. It will eat your brains.
Also, to make the zombies sympathetic, Turner breaks tradition and gives them active brains that just can't communicate with humankind and more strength than they are usually given. This creates all kinds of plot holes. First, zombies who are this smart and strong would probably be impossible for humankind to fend off. Second, it becomes clear in some scenes that while verbal communication is difficult, these zombies could communicate with humans in other ways, such as writing. If that's so, it's hard to imagine why more communication between the species hasn't occurred.
I'm wasting too much writing about a bad book. Stay away. It will eat your brains.
October 12, 2010
Dust is a gamechanger in the world of zombies. It requires you to forget everything you have learned thus far about zombies. Forget the craving for brains. Nevermind the halting, staggering or the twitching, the tics and speed walking. Joan Frances Turner has written a novel that introduces you to zombies for the first time as emotional beings; they think, communicate, wonder, fight, worry, need and care. Under the decay of death the fear they instill, they are just trying to get by.
Jessie is dead. Then undead. She died young and now lives out the life of an undead in a gang of others like her, some young, some hundreds of decades old. They hunt, because of course, they are hungry but unlike many of the other gangs of undead, Jessie and her friends would rather not partake of human “hoo-meat.” When a hoo visitor raises some questions, Jessie begins searching for answers, and that search leads her to the recesses of her past and the uncertainty of her future.
Dust is both unequivocally tender and explicitly brutal. The violence is straightforward and striking; Joan uses adjectives I never want to hear or read again to describe the crushing of bones, the seeping of flesh, bodies and personalities turning to dust. The analogies are a harvest of gore, every meaning cultivating the taste of violence in your throat.
Turner has managed to make zombie fiction sublime and provoking literature, and in just her first novel shows her evocative talent for character creation.
Jessie is dead. Then undead. She died young and now lives out the life of an undead in a gang of others like her, some young, some hundreds of decades old. They hunt, because of course, they are hungry but unlike many of the other gangs of undead, Jessie and her friends would rather not partake of human “hoo-meat.” When a hoo visitor raises some questions, Jessie begins searching for answers, and that search leads her to the recesses of her past and the uncertainty of her future.
Dust is both unequivocally tender and explicitly brutal. The violence is straightforward and striking; Joan uses adjectives I never want to hear or read again to describe the crushing of bones, the seeping of flesh, bodies and personalities turning to dust. The analogies are a harvest of gore, every meaning cultivating the taste of violence in your throat.
…the panic he’d barely been hiding oozing like a vein of oil into his eyes.
…this was constant, insistent, tugging at every corner of my body like a whining toddler who wouldn’t let go.
…a hand with skin like a deflated balloon sawing back and forth…
…that chemical stench…strong as a soaked cotton ball against the nose.
Turner has managed to make zombie fiction sublime and provoking literature, and in just her first novel shows her evocative talent for character creation.
January 25, 2011
Who knew that zombies are offended by the term "zombie" and prefer to be called "undead" or "regenerators"? Who knew zombies could communicate with one another and actually have emotional drives? Well, that is what we learn from reading this novel. Plot-wise, it drags a little. But, I guess that may not be a bad thing considering that we are dealing with zombies. And, thanks to some kind of chemical accident, the living and the undead are evolving into something worse (yes, there is something worse than being a zombie). I think what made me grow bored with this novel - a little bit - is that it is very hard to wrap my head around the idea that living humans and zombies can coexist and even come to fight on the same side. I don't know. There are some really good action sequences (if you're into zombie action) and the imagery can be quite repulsive at times but, overall, this novel just doesn't do much for the zombie genre. But...there are worse reads. And, I have to admit, this was a risk for the author. If nothing else, that is admirable.
September 13, 2010
Jessie is one of the undead, a zombie, living out her days with her gang in the woods, hunting and fighting. But a new disease is spreading through the undead and the living that may wipe out both. While this sounds all apocalyptic and exciting, the truth of the matter is that the novel dragged on for much longer than necessary.
The dirty, the disgusting, doesn't necessarily phase me when it is naturally integrated into a thought-provoking and entertaining story. With Dust, however, it's really all I remember - various descriptions of torn flesh, vicious fights, etc. The plot itself, revolving around a disease that morphs both the undead and the living into something entirely new, kept me interested for a good portion of the book, but after a while, I just wanted the story to be over. At 374 pages, Dust really drags out the action, primarily by including all of those yucky descriptions I mentioned earlier.
The dirty, the disgusting, doesn't necessarily phase me when it is naturally integrated into a thought-provoking and entertaining story. With Dust, however, it's really all I remember - various descriptions of torn flesh, vicious fights, etc. The plot itself, revolving around a disease that morphs both the undead and the living into something entirely new, kept me interested for a good portion of the book, but after a while, I just wanted the story to be over. At 374 pages, Dust really drags out the action, primarily by including all of those yucky descriptions I mentioned earlier.
October 8, 2011
http://www.theunreadreader.com/2010/0...
Forget everything you ever knew about Zombies. I've got some new zombie factoids for you. Zombies have always existed; no one know why. Zombies have super human strength. And, zombies communicate telepathically with each other. Okay, so maybe we kind of already knew those things, but did you know that zombies can also dance and laugh and love... They can also make you cry, and not just in the 'OMFG! A Zombie is about to eat my brains' sort of way.
I never expected a book about zombies to be so full of mystery and adventure, especially coming from a zombie's point of view! Jessie is as bad ass as a rotten old corpus can get! She fights, she hunts, and she hates 'hoos' (aka humans). And who could blame her; they are pea brains who think the undead are mindless savages, which is just so prejudice, as Jessie would say! In Jessie's world, you can't become a zombie just because another zombie bites you. Some humans tunnel up undead, some don't. And all of this added to the mystery of the story.
So begins the tale of Jessie and her gang. Her undead life has been perfect for the past 9 years. Then a new class of living dead begins to appear, and it's up to Jessie to figure out what is happening to cause the change.
While Dust was a fun read, it was also a bit drawn out. The writing is stellar, thought provoking even, and I enjoyed the story, but I was able to put the book down more than a few times because Jessie's journey was so long winded, and I found myself losing interest along the way.
The book is told in three parts, Dry Bones, Danse Macabre, and Resurgam (very cool titles). But towards the last part, I couldn't help but wish the book would end already. I wasn't sure if the story ever reach a clear climax, although there were several mini ones, but once the basic plot was revealed, I thought, okay, got it. A new disease is affecting human and zombies alike; now they are all starving, they are all dying. Only a few will survive.
You pick up the jest of this early on, yet the story kept going. And with 374 pages, I thought, it must be continuing on like this because there is more to the love story part of it, but nope. The 'love story' wasn't very well developed, so it didn't seem very important, which was somewhat of a disappointment because I wanted to know more about the relationship between Jessie and Joe. Yes, Jessie reflects on Joe quite a lot and says he was important to her, but with hardly any interaction between them throughout the story, I didn't really get the why of it. And Jessie's dream scenes were too repetitious and incoherent, which was sort of good in a way because it did give you the feeling that you were in the mind of a zombie that may be actually finally dying.
In spite of this, I really admired Jessie as a character. She was loyal, loving, logical, and lethal. And some of the member of her gang, the Fly-by-Nights, were really cool, too! I mean, what is cooler than a zombie that can rock a fedora? They were a great, bonded family, when they weren't beating each other up! It was fun to hang out with the Flies and see the different dynamics included in their relationships with one another, and it saddened, sometimes to the point of tears, when one of them was lost.
Overall, demented, in a good way, and unique story, with scary looking characters, faces and bodies in various stages of rot and maggot eaten, and yes, they use expletives as part of their everyday speak, but it is not overly done, about Zombies who are just looking for a way to survive. But don't feel sorry for them or they will beat you up and eat you, and not necessarily in that order, cuz they are awesome like that!
Forget everything you ever knew about Zombies. I've got some new zombie factoids for you. Zombies have always existed; no one know why. Zombies have super human strength. And, zombies communicate telepathically with each other. Okay, so maybe we kind of already knew those things, but did you know that zombies can also dance and laugh and love... They can also make you cry, and not just in the 'OMFG! A Zombie is about to eat my brains' sort of way.
I never expected a book about zombies to be so full of mystery and adventure, especially coming from a zombie's point of view! Jessie is as bad ass as a rotten old corpus can get! She fights, she hunts, and she hates 'hoos' (aka humans). And who could blame her; they are pea brains who think the undead are mindless savages, which is just so prejudice, as Jessie would say! In Jessie's world, you can't become a zombie just because another zombie bites you. Some humans tunnel up undead, some don't. And all of this added to the mystery of the story.
So begins the tale of Jessie and her gang. Her undead life has been perfect for the past 9 years. Then a new class of living dead begins to appear, and it's up to Jessie to figure out what is happening to cause the change.
While Dust was a fun read, it was also a bit drawn out. The writing is stellar, thought provoking even, and I enjoyed the story, but I was able to put the book down more than a few times because Jessie's journey was so long winded, and I found myself losing interest along the way.
The book is told in three parts, Dry Bones, Danse Macabre, and Resurgam (very cool titles). But towards the last part, I couldn't help but wish the book would end already. I wasn't sure if the story ever reach a clear climax, although there were several mini ones, but once the basic plot was revealed, I thought, okay, got it. A new disease is affecting human and zombies alike; now they are all starving, they are all dying. Only a few will survive.
You pick up the jest of this early on, yet the story kept going. And with 374 pages, I thought, it must be continuing on like this because there is more to the love story part of it, but nope. The 'love story' wasn't very well developed, so it didn't seem very important, which was somewhat of a disappointment because I wanted to know more about the relationship between Jessie and Joe. Yes, Jessie reflects on Joe quite a lot and says he was important to her, but with hardly any interaction between them throughout the story, I didn't really get the why of it. And Jessie's dream scenes were too repetitious and incoherent, which was sort of good in a way because it did give you the feeling that you were in the mind of a zombie that may be actually finally dying.
In spite of this, I really admired Jessie as a character. She was loyal, loving, logical, and lethal. And some of the member of her gang, the Fly-by-Nights, were really cool, too! I mean, what is cooler than a zombie that can rock a fedora? They were a great, bonded family, when they weren't beating each other up! It was fun to hang out with the Flies and see the different dynamics included in their relationships with one another, and it saddened, sometimes to the point of tears, when one of them was lost.
Overall, demented, in a good way, and unique story, with scary looking characters, faces and bodies in various stages of rot and maggot eaten, and yes, they use expletives as part of their everyday speak, but it is not overly done, about Zombies who are just looking for a way to survive. But don't feel sorry for them or they will beat you up and eat you, and not necessarily in that order, cuz they are awesome like that!
September 4, 2019
I didn’t think I could find a zombie book that I didn’t like, but here we are. Yes, it’s a fresh, new take on zombiedom, but I couldn’t handle the “hoos” and “mind radio” and all the rest. it’s just so clunky! Not for me.
January 8, 2011
From my blog, The Books I Read...:
I first heard of this book through an email newsletter I get from my local library. The summary sounded rather interesting so I put it on hold.
First and foremost this is a zombie novel told from the point of view of the zombies. These are not your typical zombies; they communicate with each other, they form groups for company, safety and survival, and fun. Zombies, intelligent or not, are NOT sexy and Turner does not shy away from keeping that point right in the reader's face. Many reviews of this book have mentioned the overly gross/disgusting descriptions of the zombies, their life stages, the way they eat etc, but none of those scenes bothered me much at all because the writing in the novel is great.
Turner has done an amazing job at building her world. The zombie culture is well written and fleshed out and even though Jessie and her crew don't have much ambition; they're content to eat, sleep and fight, that in itself is still interesting to read about. I found the first half of the book to be more enjoyable than the second simply because the characters were just that much more, pardon the pun, alive than in the second half.
So, why three stars? I liked the book. I did finish it. My biggest problem was that the second half of the book took a huge turn towards the almost mystical/philosophical and I wasn't really expecting it. I was hoping for a much more dramatic reveal about the sickness and how/why it was occuring and I didn't get that. Instead the whole how/why was rather a let down and the ending of the book was almost too pat and a touch corny.
I've heard there are to be two more books in this series. I'd certainly be willing to read them when they're released, if only to see where this world could possibly be heading.
I first heard of this book through an email newsletter I get from my local library. The summary sounded rather interesting so I put it on hold.
First and foremost this is a zombie novel told from the point of view of the zombies. These are not your typical zombies; they communicate with each other, they form groups for company, safety and survival, and fun. Zombies, intelligent or not, are NOT sexy and Turner does not shy away from keeping that point right in the reader's face. Many reviews of this book have mentioned the overly gross/disgusting descriptions of the zombies, their life stages, the way they eat etc, but none of those scenes bothered me much at all because the writing in the novel is great.
Turner has done an amazing job at building her world. The zombie culture is well written and fleshed out and even though Jessie and her crew don't have much ambition; they're content to eat, sleep and fight, that in itself is still interesting to read about. I found the first half of the book to be more enjoyable than the second simply because the characters were just that much more, pardon the pun, alive than in the second half.
So, why three stars? I liked the book. I did finish it. My biggest problem was that the second half of the book took a huge turn towards the almost mystical/philosophical and I wasn't really expecting it. I was hoping for a much more dramatic reveal about the sickness and how/why it was occuring and I didn't get that. Instead the whole how/why was rather a let down and the ending of the book was almost too pat and a touch corny.
I've heard there are to be two more books in this series. I'd certainly be willing to read them when they're released, if only to see where this world could possibly be heading.
September 7, 2010
NOTE: I am running a giveaway for this book at my blog from Sept. 6-10, 2010. Please visit here for entry:
http://twimom227.blogspot.com/2010/09...
I’m going to start by telling you that this is my first zombie book. I didn’t know what to expect, but my ideas of zombies were formed by horror movies. This is NOT what Jessie is about. She is a teenage girl that died and was reborn into a new life of the “undead.” The undead don’t feed on human brains (unless they want to), but rather the freshly killed flesh of any animal. The story, told in the first person POV of Jessie, opens with a hunt for a deer and slides into Jessie’s memories of being “reborn” and meeting her gang.
This story is about life and death. It’s a journey of a girl trying to figure out what it means to be alive--whether one is human (a hoo, as she calls them) or undead. Jessie is happy with her gang, but as events unravel, her life is turned upside down and inside out. The gang’s adventures beings to change when they notice a hybrid-type human/undead creature in their woods. Each member of the gang has suspicions and hides truths. Some tell lies and most are scared. As the number of strange sitings increases, a change takes hold over the gang members, as they too become like the “others” in the woods.
My Rating: #3 stars.
Liked it, there were a few issues - recommend
FOR MY FULL REVIEW and a chance to win this book, please visit my blog That's What I'm Talking About
http://twimom227.blogspot.com/2010/09...
I’m going to start by telling you that this is my first zombie book. I didn’t know what to expect, but my ideas of zombies were formed by horror movies. This is NOT what Jessie is about. She is a teenage girl that died and was reborn into a new life of the “undead.” The undead don’t feed on human brains (unless they want to), but rather the freshly killed flesh of any animal. The story, told in the first person POV of Jessie, opens with a hunt for a deer and slides into Jessie’s memories of being “reborn” and meeting her gang.
This story is about life and death. It’s a journey of a girl trying to figure out what it means to be alive--whether one is human (a hoo, as she calls them) or undead. Jessie is happy with her gang, but as events unravel, her life is turned upside down and inside out. The gang’s adventures beings to change when they notice a hybrid-type human/undead creature in their woods. Each member of the gang has suspicions and hides truths. Some tell lies and most are scared. As the number of strange sitings increases, a change takes hold over the gang members, as they too become like the “others” in the woods.
My Rating: #3 stars.
Liked it, there were a few issues - recommend
FOR MY FULL REVIEW and a chance to win this book, please visit my blog That's What I'm Talking About
October 29, 2010
I wanted to like this book. I tried to like this book. I slogged through it, hoping to like it in the end. But sadly, I did not like this book.
I'm a bzz Agent and this book was one of my campaigns. When I got the assignment and read the first chapter online, I couldn't wait to get my hands on it. I requested at the library and waited.
I'm a fan of supernatural fiction, though zombie books aren't my norm. I had to get through the graphic descriptions of the zombies at first, but once I moved past that I thought, "hey, this isn't half bad." It had family, friends, real life issues, from the zombies.
Admittedly, it wasn't very well written. Fairly juvenile, in fact. But, I could have gotten past that too, if the story wouldn't have gotten so...bizarre.
What started out as a teenage zombie story, with perhaps even a promising romance, tried to become some kind of creation story and it completely lost me. An "illness" comes and wipes out not only the zombies, but the humans as well. Both are reborn as a weird alive undead creature. But then, even those creatures are wiped out and only a few of the zombies who got sick survive, to start a new world.
So, I wanted to like it. I wanted to create bzz about it. But in the end, I couldn't recommend it to anyone.
I'm a bzz Agent and this book was one of my campaigns. When I got the assignment and read the first chapter online, I couldn't wait to get my hands on it. I requested at the library and waited.
I'm a fan of supernatural fiction, though zombie books aren't my norm. I had to get through the graphic descriptions of the zombies at first, but once I moved past that I thought, "hey, this isn't half bad." It had family, friends, real life issues, from the zombies.
Admittedly, it wasn't very well written. Fairly juvenile, in fact. But, I could have gotten past that too, if the story wouldn't have gotten so...bizarre.
What started out as a teenage zombie story, with perhaps even a promising romance, tried to become some kind of creation story and it completely lost me. An "illness" comes and wipes out not only the zombies, but the humans as well. Both are reborn as a weird alive undead creature. But then, even those creatures are wiped out and only a few of the zombies who got sick survive, to start a new world.
So, I wanted to like it. I wanted to create bzz about it. But in the end, I couldn't recommend it to anyone.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
July 29, 2010
Jessie barely remembers the day she died in a car accident. Her life did not end there. She is a zombie, but don't you dare call her that. She lives in the woods with a small pack of other undead, living and surviving in a sort of mock-society. They hunt, they sleep, they have a fearless leader. Then Jessie runs into her brother Jim, an uninfected human who works at a lab to research zombies. However, as Jessie's friends and acquaintances begin to get sick and die (again), she realizes something much more sinister may be at work.
This book was SO gory! Seriously. But I suppose a certain amount of gore is to be expected from a book where the main characters are dead and rotting. Still... would advise against snacking while reading this one. There were some interesting bits on theories about what it means to be alive. Joan Frances Turner has obviously spent time thinking about zombies as dead or alive, and her characters reflect her deep thoughts. Her writing style was nice too - I thought it brought a specific level of calm and poetry to the lifestyle of the undead. Not a bad book, but I couldn't really get into the mind and life of Jessie.
This book was SO gory! Seriously. But I suppose a certain amount of gore is to be expected from a book where the main characters are dead and rotting. Still... would advise against snacking while reading this one. There were some interesting bits on theories about what it means to be alive. Joan Frances Turner has obviously spent time thinking about zombies as dead or alive, and her characters reflect her deep thoughts. Her writing style was nice too - I thought it brought a specific level of calm and poetry to the lifestyle of the undead. Not a bad book, but I couldn't really get into the mind and life of Jessie.
July 19, 2021
What I liked:
the whole concept-I guess, I'm not a Zombie purist & I loved every bit of it
the gruesome descriptions-an added benefit while reading from a rotter's POV.
What I didn't like:
the whole jumbled up part that probably was in Jessie's mind about Death & extinction etc-the ending was to my liking but the path leading to it, I mostly skimmed.
Give this book a try if you're looking for an original take on Zombies- beware of ickiness!
Also reviewed at:
Shelfari
Amazon
B&N
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
June 29, 2010
This was another book that just fell flat for me. It was a really unique interesting idea, and I was really looking forward to it. My problem was, the stream of consiousness flow of the writing was really hard to follow along with. It would jump from one event to the other, and you're left wondering what the heck just happened. I had a hard time keeping up with each event and the side characters. I would get the names mixed up and the characters just kinda blended together. All in all, this one just wasn't for more, but it was definitely unique, and I'm sure some readers are going to love it!
February 7, 2011
This was a fantastic new approach to a lagging genre. Others have tried to punch up new visions and fallen flat because they were wading into the same pool with no new directions. I have to say it: leave it to a female author to freshen up things. She makes being dead seem cool, and more attractive than the alternative. This novel had great ingredients that made the collective stew of a story inviting and delicious. Relationships between the characters are carefully cultivated and ideas are challenged on a regular basis. Does a heartbeat constitute being alive? Or does friendship, comraderie, an understanding of your environment and how you reside in it truly make you human?
Read
July 18, 2010Stopped at page 28. I am not a fan of zombie books but thought this one sounded good, so I signed up for an ARC tour. I can tell that it is a well-written book with a good plot and interesting premise, I just can't stomach reading about decaying flesh, maggots, blowflies, eating people, etc.
April 27, 2010
This is probably a great Zombie book. But when the word maggot is used on repeated, then I know it's not a book for me.
May 31, 2018
dnf. great idea, pretty not fun for me. i guess i'll go watch izombie instead...
September 16, 2019
This book was SO boring. It is a story of a zombie from the zombies POV. I thought it would be a lot more interesting than it was. It was boring and I will not be reading the sequels.
December 29, 2010
I got an advanced reading copy of this book through the Amazon Vine program. When I saw this book which promised to be "a different type of zombie book" I was excited. I love zombie books and was looking for a fresh take. Overall the story is okay, but didn't seem all that original to me. The most notable thing about the book was the extremely graphic and gory descriptions given of all things putrid and nasty.
Jessica Anne Porter has been dead for nine years and she has been shambling around with a zombie gang just trying to make her way through her undead life. Then live people start showing up looking mostly dead and smelling strange and dead people are showing up looking more alive with the same strange smell. Something is changing their world and it doesn't seem to be for the better. Can Jessie and her gang survive the changes to come?
The most creative aspect of this novel is looking at zombie as higher functioning humans; basically the zombies in this book do shamble but they also can communicate at a level higher than normal humans and lead somewhat disgusting but fulfilling lives. This is not a book for the weak of stomach. The stages of zombie-hood; bloating, followed by bug infestation, and moving onto getting all dusty and itchy are all described in incredibly gory detail. The hunting, killing, and eating of...well...everything is also described in more detail than I ever needed to know; seriously it was stomach turning.
Jessie isn't really a likable character (I mean I guess as a zombie she doesn't need to be). You get to see her daily life a lot throughout this book and, to be honest, she isn't easy to relate too. In fact this book was full of selfish, strange characters that were hard to relate to and difficult to understand.
I also felt like the pacing was off in this book. It took a long time for the story to get started and the story shambled on at a very slow, dare I say, zombie-like pace. Things pick up some half way through but there is never really much of a point to the whole thing. The story was a little engaging, but never really grabbed me.
The zombies in this book are just as screwed up as all the living people, giving them a humanity that zombies in a lot of stories don't have. So that does make this book a bit different. The problem is I have read a lot of zombie books and that take just isn't all the unique. For those who want to read about thinking zombies integrating themselves into human society I would recommend reading Daniel Water's Generation Dead series. The Generation Dead series takes an in-depth look into the problems with zombies and society, throws in a little romantic subplot, some mystery, and doesn't make me feel like puking every other page.
Overall zombies as a higher form of humanity is an interesting concept and I applaud Turner for trying to give the reader an in-depth look into the zombie mind. However, the page space given to gory detail was just too much for me, the plot moved slowly, the characters were hard to relate to. At the end of it all I mostly was just happy to have finished reading this book. Seriously, this book is not for the weak of stomach. I would recommend Generation Dead by Daniel Waters as an alternative; it's not as gross, has great characters, and seriously considers the problems of zombie integration into society. If you want another zombie recommendation consider picking up The Reapers Are the Angels: A Novel by Alden Bell; this is a truly fantastic zombie read.
Jessica Anne Porter has been dead for nine years and she has been shambling around with a zombie gang just trying to make her way through her undead life. Then live people start showing up looking mostly dead and smelling strange and dead people are showing up looking more alive with the same strange smell. Something is changing their world and it doesn't seem to be for the better. Can Jessie and her gang survive the changes to come?
The most creative aspect of this novel is looking at zombie as higher functioning humans; basically the zombies in this book do shamble but they also can communicate at a level higher than normal humans and lead somewhat disgusting but fulfilling lives. This is not a book for the weak of stomach. The stages of zombie-hood; bloating, followed by bug infestation, and moving onto getting all dusty and itchy are all described in incredibly gory detail. The hunting, killing, and eating of...well...everything is also described in more detail than I ever needed to know; seriously it was stomach turning.
Jessie isn't really a likable character (I mean I guess as a zombie she doesn't need to be). You get to see her daily life a lot throughout this book and, to be honest, she isn't easy to relate too. In fact this book was full of selfish, strange characters that were hard to relate to and difficult to understand.
I also felt like the pacing was off in this book. It took a long time for the story to get started and the story shambled on at a very slow, dare I say, zombie-like pace. Things pick up some half way through but there is never really much of a point to the whole thing. The story was a little engaging, but never really grabbed me.
The zombies in this book are just as screwed up as all the living people, giving them a humanity that zombies in a lot of stories don't have. So that does make this book a bit different. The problem is I have read a lot of zombie books and that take just isn't all the unique. For those who want to read about thinking zombies integrating themselves into human society I would recommend reading Daniel Water's Generation Dead series. The Generation Dead series takes an in-depth look into the problems with zombies and society, throws in a little romantic subplot, some mystery, and doesn't make me feel like puking every other page.
Overall zombies as a higher form of humanity is an interesting concept and I applaud Turner for trying to give the reader an in-depth look into the zombie mind. However, the page space given to gory detail was just too much for me, the plot moved slowly, the characters were hard to relate to. At the end of it all I mostly was just happy to have finished reading this book. Seriously, this book is not for the weak of stomach. I would recommend Generation Dead by Daniel Waters as an alternative; it's not as gross, has great characters, and seriously considers the problems of zombie integration into society. If you want another zombie recommendation consider picking up The Reapers Are the Angels: A Novel by Alden Bell; this is a truly fantastic zombie read.
Read
July 5, 2011If you can get past the fact that the heroine of this novel is a flesh-eating zombie, you might just enjoy this stand-alone novel. While the gross-out level is very high (these are zombies, after all) the story does have some poignant and tender moments (really, it does).
In this world, buried bodies rise as zombies; only cremated bodies stay dead. Nine years ago, 15-year-old Jessie was killed in an automobile accident along with her parents. Now, Jessie lives in the woods near the Indiana-Illinois border just south of the southern tip of Lake Michigan, living off the local wildlife. The first third of the book deals with Jessie's life with her ragtag gang of fellow zombies—the Fly-by Nights. The middle section explores the mystery of strange physical changes that are occurring both among the zombies and the hoos (humans). The final section functions like a supernatural Book of Revelation, with an apocalypse followed by a redemption of sorts.
As the story moves along, Jessie's relationships with her gang members change, and she has some unsettling experiences with her long-lost brother and sister when they show up in her zombie world. The plot has some definite parallels to Steven King's The Stand (e.g., a man-made plague, multiple characters having the same dream and feeling compelled to travel to a certain place). The book ties into the butterfly effect— the theory that one innocent action can ripple out and affect the entire world, and not in a good way. In this case, though, it's not a butterfly flapping its wings in the rain forest; it's a zombie's one-time attempt to reconnect with her mortal sister.
The violence factor is very high, with lots of gnashing of teeth, bloody body parts, maggots and beetles crawling out of various body cavities, and rotted limbs falling off and being left to decay in the woods. Jessie is a true urban fantasy heroine—more rural than urban, but on her own and filled with angst about her "life" and her relationships. Jessie's gang members are in various states of "zombieness"—from newly turned 'maldies (formaldehyde-preserved corpses) to bug-infested feeders to dusties on the verge of final death—and they all have their own personalities and problems, so the group dynamics are interesting—kind of like the gang from Lord of the Flies, only undead.
Contains: Violence and gore.
Reviewed by: Patricia O. Mathews
In this world, buried bodies rise as zombies; only cremated bodies stay dead. Nine years ago, 15-year-old Jessie was killed in an automobile accident along with her parents. Now, Jessie lives in the woods near the Indiana-Illinois border just south of the southern tip of Lake Michigan, living off the local wildlife. The first third of the book deals with Jessie's life with her ragtag gang of fellow zombies—the Fly-by Nights. The middle section explores the mystery of strange physical changes that are occurring both among the zombies and the hoos (humans). The final section functions like a supernatural Book of Revelation, with an apocalypse followed by a redemption of sorts.
As the story moves along, Jessie's relationships with her gang members change, and she has some unsettling experiences with her long-lost brother and sister when they show up in her zombie world. The plot has some definite parallels to Steven King's The Stand (e.g., a man-made plague, multiple characters having the same dream and feeling compelled to travel to a certain place). The book ties into the butterfly effect— the theory that one innocent action can ripple out and affect the entire world, and not in a good way. In this case, though, it's not a butterfly flapping its wings in the rain forest; it's a zombie's one-time attempt to reconnect with her mortal sister.
The violence factor is very high, with lots of gnashing of teeth, bloody body parts, maggots and beetles crawling out of various body cavities, and rotted limbs falling off and being left to decay in the woods. Jessie is a true urban fantasy heroine—more rural than urban, but on her own and filled with angst about her "life" and her relationships. Jessie's gang members are in various states of "zombieness"—from newly turned 'maldies (formaldehyde-preserved corpses) to bug-infested feeders to dusties on the verge of final death—and they all have their own personalities and problems, so the group dynamics are interesting—kind of like the gang from Lord of the Flies, only undead.
Contains: Violence and gore.
Reviewed by: Patricia O. Mathews
November 14, 2014
Now this was quite interesting. I think I bought this for 2 euros because I thought it was another book. Well, because I bought it, I decided to read it, too. And it was surprising, not really what I was expecting. The beginning was quite close to that: zombies that are quite... well, human, in a sense, that feel love and help each other out, at least to some extent.
But then it changed. Suddenly there were less of the love and more of the violence, the gore and the things we regret. I'm not completely sure where in the book it happened, I just realized at some point that I am reading a very goddamned gory explanation of the eating habits of the main character. I'm glad I do not get queasy easily, because if I would, this book would've been problematic for me.
That being said, I'm not sure this was especially good. It wasn't bad, but the beginning was too generic YA cliche for me, and the middle was entertainingly gory but not much more, and the end was so supposedly deep that I got a bit annoyed by it at times. The bad bits weren't too bad, but the good bits weren't that good either. All in all it was quite average. At times bloody and disgusting, but otherwise average. I do not regret the 2 euros I spent on this, but I wouldn't have paid much more, either.
But then it changed. Suddenly there were less of the love and more of the violence, the gore and the things we regret. I'm not completely sure where in the book it happened, I just realized at some point that I am reading a very goddamned gory explanation of the eating habits of the main character. I'm glad I do not get queasy easily, because if I would, this book would've been problematic for me.
That being said, I'm not sure this was especially good. It wasn't bad, but the beginning was too generic YA cliche for me, and the middle was entertainingly gory but not much more, and the end was so supposedly deep that I got a bit annoyed by it at times. The bad bits weren't too bad, but the good bits weren't that good either. All in all it was quite average. At times bloody and disgusting, but otherwise average. I do not regret the 2 euros I spent on this, but I wouldn't have paid much more, either.
September 24, 2010
The premise for this book is terrific. What if zombies weren't mindless shambling corpses but rather mindful shambling corpses with brains that could communicate with the other undeads? Unfortunately, the mythos of this alternate history set on/in/near the banks of Lake Michigan, doesn't hold up at all. For example, the only way to kill a zombie is to burn them. If people are buried and then rise as zombies, why isn't it the law that everyone is cremated? If the situation has been going on since forever, then why do scientists still know nothing? And how can one man suddenly create the plague that wipes out humans and zombies alike? And it wasn't clear that it had wiped out all of humanity. We never see more than a handful of actual humans. Where are the 6 billion of us on the planet? The characters were somewhat interesting and there were parts of the story that had real potential. Even the reader's grizzled voice that made me think she might be an undead wasn't enough to overcome the world building gaps that you could hit meteors through.
October 28, 2010
I'm a zombie purist in that I don't think zombies should have any sort of consciousness. It's something that greatly annoys me. So I almost gave up on this book after the first chapter. I don't really know what to think about it now that I finished. It wasn't terrible, but the prose was a bit weak at times and there was a lot of unnecessary repetition. The author tried so hard to make the reader think that the reader didn't have to think, if that makes much sense. There were several scenes that drag on with little point, or else points that had already been made. And then one scene near the end had the sole purpose of trying to make the whole thing deep because, I guess, the apocalypse wasn't enough on its own. That's not to say it was all bad, there were good moments and interesting ideas sprinkled throughout. A few moments of very good writing, showing that the author has some ability and potential if she can avoid trying quite so hard to engage in metaphysical discussions with herself.
November 29, 2010
Do NOT read this while eating! This being a zombie - or rather, undead - novel from the point of view of the flesh-eaters, there is plenty of rotting flesh, seething bugs, eating of raw meat, brain-stomping, and that is far from all. This novel purports to show that the undead have feelings and souls, too - and when they are threatened by a virus that kills them just as surely as it does humans, one might start to feel sorry for undead Jessie, who died and rose again 9 years ago, when she was only 15. But because this virus makes live humans begin to rot and lust after raw flesh and makes the undead even hungrier than before, I could only be relieved that I wasn't having to read about the hideous situation from the human point of view. Sure, Jessie and her friends have it hard - but the humans, eating each other uncontrollably and then dying (if they manage not to be eaten by the undead), have it far worse.
Not sure I enjoyed this per se - but I did read it to the grim (but not entirely hopeless) end.
Not sure I enjoyed this per se - but I did read it to the grim (but not entirely hopeless) end.
July 2, 2011
Interesting book. I did not find it too gory, but maybe I am a bit desensitized. I liked that it didn't feel like your average zombie story, not that I am an expert. I did read an advanced copy, so it was a little hard to read around typos/missing punctuation. I didn't rush through this book, it took me a bit of time to read...but I didn't feel as if that was necessarily a bad thing. There was a repetitiveness to the story that I wasn't a huge fan of, but overall I liked the story.
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