The Living Dead Review

Author: George A. Romero & Daniel Kraus

Genre:  Horror

Format: ARC

Pages: 600+

I received a free ARC copy of this from BookishFirst for my honest review.

I have to say I was really excited for this book. The first zombie I ever saw was Night of The Living Dead. Since them I've been a George A Romero fan every since. So I was thrilled when I learned I was going to get a copy of  The Living Dead.  A struggled with this book for several reasons. Some of which were own personal issue and some were the book itself. But, let's start with some positives.

This might be the one of the best openings I've read in a while for in the horror genre. What better place to start the zombie apocalypse than in a morgue? Despite having started this book in the middle of the afternoon I was a little creeped out by it. Not to mention it was an amazing set up for later on in the book.  It set the tone for the rest the book and I was excited. In fact all the intro chapters to the cast of characters was amazing. All of them came with different backgrounds, in different parts of the country, all going out the end of the world a little different. However after a while I started to see my interest in the story draining.

The book is very detailed orientated which was great for understanding how the zombies came to be, and how the world was changing. But, the stories also jumped a lot from past and present with each character and I found myself getting things crossed and having to go back to re-read certain things because I lot of information is getting fired at you once. I found it hard to read for long stretches out at time always felt tired after any amount of time spent reading. Though I liked a lot of the characters eventually I stopped picking this up.

But, I realized I needed to know what happened to Greer and Muse. To the Face. So I pushed my way through the rest of the story.

There were some great moments in between especially toward then end when Etta was interviewing everyone about how they survived. It was a fast pace look everything when missed when the story final time jumped. I liked the we got to see Annie's story all the way through to the very end. I really liked the story of what happened on the Olympia. It was creepy and terrifying in a way that had nothing to do with the zombies, but in the way humans handled the plague. The stories on how we were quick to turn on each other.

Still, it took my three months to read this book because I just kept hoping it would get better, and parts of it did. Then it would get strange again and I'd loose interest again. The last section however was almost it's saving grace when we get to the Old Muddy. When you get to see who some how managed to survive, and how the zombies were sort fading out due to lack of food. Then it all got jumbled again when the villain from the start of the book just popped back up.

He just strolled into the Old Muddy to basically bring it crumbling down because they were living in sync with the zombies. Because he had nothing better do and just started the chain of events all over again. Everyone who fight to survive was dead again. It was just really unsatisfying and disappointing. Like I'm all for killing off characters to strike emotion. Maybe as the reader I was suppose to left feeling hopeless, but I was glad to have finished it. Because honestly I should have maybe given up 2 months ago.

I will say this. There were a handful of chapters from the zombies point of view. Those were hands down the best part of the book and I wished we'd gotten a few more chapters into their collective heads. It was chilling and strange, but different in a way that I really liked. But everything else kind of left me wanting.

Buy, Borrow, or Skip: I saw skip and watch some of his movies instead. Though a lot of people seem to have enjoyed their early copies of this and I'm glad. It just was not for me.

The Living Dead comes out August 4, 2020!  

HAPPY READING!!