Book Review: Dread Nation by Justina Ireland

Book: Dread Nation by Justina Ireland

Genre: YA horror

Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★

We read this book for last month's book club and I went into it pretty much knowing nothing. It took me a minute to get into it, but then it was quick and fast reading after that. I started it late and literally finished the last paragraph as the first book club member was arriving at my house! WAH!

So this is a zombie story that takes place a few years after the Civil War. So it's an alternate reality story that basically answers the question "what if when Gettysburg happened, all the guys dying in that battle rose up as zombies?" 

Our heroine girl is a former slave, now "freed", but training to be a companion.. .meaning the one who escorts the rich white girls and fights the zombies off should the need arise. (Gah sorry I already forgot what the zombies are called in this world.) She seems happy to be learning to fight, but not so happy that this is the only choice she really has. 

She and a bunch of other girls live and train in a sort of boarding house. One day when she fights a zombie off of the mayor (in a situation he himself created,) she suddenly gets some attention and he decides he wants her for special project. And THAT'S about when this book became very riveting and crazy!

It reminded me a lot of The Walking Dead, mostly in that people are trying all kinds of ways to survive, and this ends up turning the survivors into the bad guys. People are so awful when they are trying to take charge of survivors and lead them through an apocalypse! Seriously, if something like this every happens in real life, I hope we've all learned something from all the stories we've watched and read!

And then the book just ended when things were getting very intense which of course means I will be needing to find book two. 

Anyway, I really quite enjoyed it. It not only deals with zombies, but with all the hot button topic race issues of our day, but in a clever way. Very creative book all around.