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Mira Grant
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Good setting, poor book

lampak
8/20/2011
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The book is set in a world dominated by zombies. It may sound generic - even given the one original element of people being turn into zombies by a virus - but the author does an excellent job at depicting brutalities of a world where everybody may one day be expected to kill their close ones before they "amplify" - turn into a zombie - and impose a threat for others.

It seems, however, that whilst the author had an idea for a setting and wrote excellent, witty dialogues, she lacked an idea for a plot. The good thing is she kept zombies just a background, part of the setting. So Georgia and Shaun, the main characters don't try to stop their spreading or find those who started it all. To them they're just a normal part of life.

The bad thing is, the theme chosen for the axis of the book's events is probably the worst possible one - presidential campaign and political conspiracy. A perfect candidate vs. a religious fanatic, a few assassination attempts (zombies involved, of course) and other equally boring stuff.

But probably the absolutely heaviest of the author's sins is extensiveness of desriptions. Every smallest detail is desribed, every passage from point A to point B. Having read this book you're certain to throw up every time you hear the phrase "blood test". The book is 600 hundred pages long but could have really been half that size if all the unnecessary descriptions were removed.

There were two (2) moments, twists of plot in the book which were truly tragic and were the only moments when I really cared about the characters. Most of the time the political plot and loads of redundant desriptions made the book feel mundane. Which is why I cannot rate this book more than 6 out of 10.