The Reapers are the Angels - Book Review

The Reapers are the Angels
by Alden Bell

Amazon (UK)(USA)

Zombies have infested a fallen America. A young girl named Temple is on the run. Haunted by her past and pursued by a killer, Temple is surrounded by death and danger, hoping to be set free.

For twenty-five years, civilization has survived in meager enclaves, guarded against a plague of the dead. Temple wanders this blighted landscape, keeping to herself and keeping her demons inside her heart. She can't remember a time before the zombies, but she does remember an old man who took her in and the younger brother she cared for until the tragedy that set her on a personal journey toward redemption. Moving back and forth between the insulated remnants of society and the brutal frontier beyond, Temple must decide where ultimately to make a home and find the salvation she seeks. (Synopsis from Goodreads)

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This book surprised me in all the right ways. It’s an unflinching and often brutal zombie story, and yet it’s also hauntingly beautiful, moving, and told in the voice of such a unique and interesting character. In its themes and writing style, it really is very different from any zombie (or any paranormal creature) story that I’ve read before.

The main character is Temple, a wonderfully resourceful, thoughtful and independent teenage girl, who has been left alone in a post-apocalyptic world in which most of the Earth’s population has been zombified. She has accepted her situation with surprising grace and maturity. Rather than long for a world that no longer is, or attempt to change it, she has adapted, and she finds beauty in all the little wonders of nature that still exist. This is not the kind of zombie novel where the characters are searching for a cure or a safe haven, or even battling against hoards of zombies just to survive. This is something very different. This is a story about survival, but perhaps more about survival of the soul than of the body. In that way, it is somewhat akin to Warm Bodies, another very unique zombie story that I’ve recently read and loved. Be warned, though; this has none of the romance of Warm Bodies. It is harsher, and in some ways an even stranger book, but just as clever and astonishing.

The zombies in the story are the slow moving, lurching kind. In fact, they rarely pose much of a threat to Temple, and only seem to be a problem if humans are caught unaware, or if people attempt to remain static and walled up in large communities. Temple understands that she is living in a new kind of world, the kind where it is better to keep moving, constantly, and she finds a quiet joy in this. She travels, discovering new places and new people, and she accepts that if the zombies get her, it will be because she has been careless. In this way, the zombies are more like predatory wild animals than monsters, and, in fact, the true dangers of this world come from other humans. I only really have one criticism of the zombie aspect, and that’s the scenes with the mutants, which just felt a little too video-gamey and, for me anyway, didn’t seem to fit with the rest of the book.

While staying in a community of survivors, Temple is attacked and forced to defend herself. She kills a man, and then must flee his brother, who wants revenge. Meanwhile, Temple has taken on a mentally handicapped man who cannot fend for himself, trying to take him to whatever remnants of family he has left. The story is therefore half quest, half chase, but the pace, while fast, is not frantic. Temple accepts everything that happens to her, even the basic unfairness of being blamed for killing a man in self-defence, a man who was clearly in the wrong. His brother knows this too, and even regrets having to kill Temple, but he is still set on this course, as if he has no other choice. Both he and Temple almost seem to be bound by deep, raw laws of the world, and both have a strong belief in fate, or at least in some kind of order and meaning that drives them. It is tragic that the deep bond between them is one based on revenge and death.

The feel, story and themes of the book give it a very Wild West feel, so much so that I would call it a Zombie Western. The new post-apocalyptic world seems to suit Temple’s free spirit better than the old world would have; she is at home in a life without restrictions and the complicated rules of society. The revenge theme, particularly, based on a deep feeling of duty rather than justice, fits very well into the book’s style. I found this fascinating, particularly when combined with the lyrical quality of the writing. It’s not just a Zombie Western, it’s a beautiful Zombie Western, which is even more surprising.

The Reapers are the Angels surprised and delighted me. I found it moving, tragic, and beautiful. It’s a fairly short book, well paced, and I was captivated until the very end. (Proof of this: I read most of it on a train, with no seat, sitting uncomfortably on a suitcase with screaming children nearby, and as soon as I started reading I didn’t even notice anymore. And let’s just say, it’s a good job that my stop happened to be the train’s final station.) If you love zombies, or even if you’re getting a little tired of them by now and would like something a bit different, you should definitely consider adding this to your ‘to read’ list.

The Eternity Cure - Book Review

Allison Sekemoto has vowed to rescue her creator, Kanin, who is being held hostage and tortured by the psychotic vampire Sarren. The call of blood leads her back to the beginning—New Covington and the Fringe, and a vampire prince who wants her dead yet may become her wary ally.

Even as Allie faces shocking revelations and heartbreak like she’s never known, a new strain of the Red Lung virus that decimated humanity is rising to threaten human and vampire alike. (Synopsis from Goodreads)

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(Note - this review contains slight spoilers for things that are revealed in the first chapters of the book. As such, they are not really spoilery spoilers, but if you don't want any information about the plot before reading this, then perhaps stay away. I will sum up for you instead - this is a fantastic book and certainly a must-read if you enjoyed the first!)

I was a little worried about this book, though I’m not entirely sure why. I loved The Immortal Rules, but I suppose I thought this one would surely have trouble living up to it, or that it might start moving into predictable patterns. I really shouldn’t have worried, because Julie Kagawa knows exactly what she’s doing. This is a fantastic, well-paced and exciting story, with wonderful characters and just the right amounts of romance, horror, action, and slightly black humour. It’s even better than The Immortal Rules, and I couldn’t put it down!

The book begins with Allie trying to track down Kanin, and spends quite a lot of time recapping events from the first book. I actually find this kind of recapping a bit frustrating when it’s mixed in with new events, as it means that you can’t skip it if you still remember the first book clearly. Still, I know a lot of people prefer to have this, and it doesn’t take long to push through. Then we are straight in on the action, as Allie creeps into Washington DC and breaks into a vampire base in the Capitol building (I think... if I have my DC layout right in my head!). Then it’s to the subway tunnels which are seething with rabids, and I am absolutely convinced that Julie Kagawa is a Fallout 3 fan. After this, we go back to New Covington, for more sewer-crawling and a new kind of zombie menace.

Julie Kagawa is very good at writing action, and she doesn’t hold back on the scares and gore as far as vampires and zombies and zombie-vampires (and vampire-zombies?) are concerned. The first book had quite a unique genre-mixing feel to it, and this one continues that while adding even more to the mix. The story is fast-paced, only pausing now and again for a quick breath before diving into more chases and fights. It’s an intense book, the stakes (no pun intended) are ramped up from the first book, and I was really caught up in everything that was happening. This is definite edge-of-your-seat stuff.

The book has a fun story and great action, but it’s really the characters that make it so fantastic. Allie is as awesome as ever (though it’s a shame she appears to be in ‘lone girl position’ this book), Zeke continues to surprise me, Kanin was actually better than I remembered him, and the addition of Jackal back into the mix is unexpectedly perfect. Jackal adds a lovely note of black humour into the story, and it’s almost enough to make me forget that he killed some people Allie cared about in the first book. Almost. The dynamic between Jackal, Allie and Zeke is great, and I really liked how the various relationships between them developed. I’m curious to see what will happen with Jackal in the next book, as the ties between them all have become very complicated now. Sarren is also a wonderful villain; a little cheesy and larger than life, perhaps, but ideal for this kind of story. Plus, another video game reference? Or do I just see these everywhere now?

One thing that continued to delight me about the book was the way in which the author didn’t stick to clichéd or expected patterns in the romance. For instance, there is a moment where I was convinced that Allie was going to tell Zeke she doesn’t love him, in order to protect him. That’s something I find particularly annoying in stories, as it feels like a cheap and unrealistic way to create drama, another example being ‘inexplicable secret-keeping’. Refreshingly, this book never does either of those things, and the romance is both believable and touching. Characters always act honestly, and their relationships with each other, romantic and otherwise, feel completely real. The romance itself also doesn’t dominate the story but progresses naturally within it, which works very well.

The Eternity Cure is an exciting story with fantastic characters, elements of horror, fantasy and black humour, and a touching romance. It also has a particularly good end and one heck of a cliffhanger. I can’t wait for the third book!


Thank you to Harlequin and NetGalley for providing a review copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.


 

Warm Bodies - Book Review

'R' is a zombie. He has no name, no memories and no pulse, but he has dreams. He is a little different from his fellow Dead.

Amongst the ruins of an abandoned city, R meets a girl. Her name is Julie and she is the opposite of everything he knows - warm and bright and very much alive, she is a blast of colour in a dreary grey landscape. For reasons he can't understand, R chooses to save Julie instead of eating her, and a tense yet strangely tender relationship begins.

This has never happened before. It breaks the rules and defies logic, but R is no longer content with life in the grave. He wants to breathe again, he wants to live, and Julie wants to help him. But their grim, rotting world won't be changed without a fight... (Synopsis from Goodreads)

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If you’ve seen the trailers for the film version of this without really knowing much about the book, like I had before reading it, then you’re in for a surprise. The film looks like it takes a more comedic approach, and the world looks much less dystopian (though of course, it’s hard to tell from a short trailer), which could fool people into thinking this is a lighter, fluffier book than it really is. It’s deep, sometimes disturbing, weirdly romantic even in the most bizarre circumstances, clever, full of black humour, often violent, and told in an interesting style that’s somehow both poetic and very matter of fact. And, while I do think the movie looks fun, this book is really something special: a unique and moving twist on the zombie apocalypse that I can’t recommend enough.

Make no mistake; this book is dark. The zombies eat people with gusto, post-apocalyptic human civilisation is pretty bleak, and there are plenty of people – both dead and alive – who are trying to kill each other. There’s also a particularly monstrous kind of zombie that moves more quickly than the others, scuttles up buildings, and forms a kind of skeleton zombie-cult, that I found very scary. In the story, R, the main character, is a zombie who’s changing for some mysterious reason that neither he nor the others understand. He becomes obsessed with a human girl who helps him to think about life again... but this isn’t exactly a fuzzy love story. R and Julie’s fates become entwined when R eats the brain of a boy called Perry. R literally consumes Perry’s memories, including thoughts of Perry’s girlfriend, Julie. Then, while still covered in Perry’s blood, R helps Julie to escape his ravenous zombie friends.

It doesn’t sound like the best start to a romance, but R and Julie’s odd relationship is actually surprisingly sweet. That’s because this is also a book with a lot of heart; it has deep messages about human nature, and while it does not necessarily gloss over the more disturbing elements of its subject, it is a very hopeful story. The latter is a little ironic, given that the story is so strongly based on Romeo and Juliet, even referencing the names of characters and specific scenes (such as the balcony). Where Romeo and Juliet is about tragic fate, however, Warm Bodies shows that there is life and love even in the most desperate and dangerous times.

There were some elements of the book that were perhaps a little cliché, which was disappointing given the otherwise original spin on the zombie idea. In particular, the obvious ‘military leader who is too set in his ways to accept differences of opinion and just wants to shoot stuff instead’ character irritated me slightly. I also thought Julie’s extreme importance to the other zombies later in the story was a little bizarre and unconvincing. However, using zombies as a metaphor for despair and apathy, and the boneys as a symbol of rigidity and intolerance was very interesting, and I thought a lot of the messages the book carried were cleverly conveyed.

I loved the idea that zombies such as R might be intelligent and almost poetic inside their own minds, but that when they try to speak only groans emerge. R was a fantastic point-of-view character, who told the story with wit, charm, and a dry sense of humour that made it a joy to read. The book is written in a literary style with plenty of black humour and zombie pop-culture references thrown in. This really makes it stand out from typical zombie stories, being a more thoughtful read and focusing less on the horror. The character of R is what really makes this work, and holds the whole thing together. There was one small thing that niggled about R, however; there were points where he seemed to get off a little too lightly with things he had done. Julie and her friend are very quick to forgive his zombie behaviour, and though this makes logical sense, it didn’t ring true emotionally for me.

Warm Bodies is definitely a quirky book. It’s thoughtful, surprisingly romantic, funny, and takes quite a unique approach to the zombie story. It also has a sense of dark fun to it, and includes a few scares and some gore too. R is a wonderful narrator, who pulls the book together and adds a strong sense of heart and hope to the story. The author combines all these elements effortlessly into something moving, exciting, and very different from anything I’ve read before in this genre. I really loved this one!


Thank you to Random House and NetGalley for providing a review copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

The Immortal Rules - Book Review

The Immortal Rules, by Julie Kagawa: In a future world, vampires reign. Humans are blood cattle. And one girl will search for the key to save humanity.

Allison Sekemoto survives in the Fringe, the outermost circle of a vampire city. By day, she and her crew scavenge for food. By night, any one of them could be eaten.

Until the night Allie herself is attacked--and given the ultimate choice. Die...or become one of the monsters. Faced with her own mortality, Allie becomes what she despises most. To survive, she must learn the rules of being immortal, including the most important: go long enough without human blood, and you will go mad.

Then Allie is forced to flee into the unknown, outside her city walls. And Allie soon must decide what--and who--is worth dying for. (Slightly edited synopsis from Goodreads)

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This book is actually built on a similar concept to another book I’ve just read – Vampire Hunter D. It is dystopia combined with vampires, a future in which the human race has been severely depleted and vampires have taken over. In Vampire Hunter D it was nuclear war; in this it’s a virus that’s wiped out most of the Earth’s population. Whereas in Vampire Hunter D, enough time has passed that humans have fought back, in this the vamps are very much in control, though there are suggestions of human resistance. The vampires pen the remaining humans into strictly policed cities where they are treated like farm animals – kept alive to donate blood at regular intervals, as we keep animals to give us milk and eggs.