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Even White Trash Zombies Get the Blues by Diana RowlandMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
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Yes, be shocked. I read not one but two zombie books within the span of two days.Of course it's technically the same thing as it's the continuation of Angel Crawford's story but details, people. Mere details.
Via Goodreads, yo:
Angel Crawford is finally starting to get used to life as a brain-eating zombie, but her problems are far from over. Her felony record is coming back to haunt her, more zombie hunters are popping up, and she's beginning to wonder if her hunky cop-boyfriend is involved with the zombie mafia. Yeah, that's right--the zombie mafia.
Throw in a secret lab and a lot of conspiracy, and Angel's going to need all of her brainpower--and maybe a brain smoothie as well--in order to get through it without falling apart.
Since this is the second book in the White Trash Zombie series, I won't do it like I normally do a review. Instead, you'll just get my thoughts.
First of all, I will say that I adored Angel in the first book of this series. She definitely captured my interests and I was looking forward to reading more about her during her journey of settling in to the zombie life. So by the time I finished this book, I was officially hooked. Angel grows even more in this book. She's really putting her life together and discovering things about herself that she didn't seem to realize before. She's finding her niche I guess you could say.
Of course, she has that pesky probation officer she has to meet with and sure she has to get her GED or otherwise be thrown back in jail, but that doesn't seem to slow her down one bit.
However, I started to dislike Marcus even more in this book due to the sheer way he treats Angel - it's like nothing she says is taken seriously by him. And she points this out to him midway through the book only to be blown off. He redeemed himself in the end a bit but I still felt as if Angel could do better boyfriend-wise, that she could find someone who treated her like an equal, especially with everything she had managed to accomplish in the end.
I disliked Marcus' uncle with a passion for reasons that I just cannot explain other than I managed to wrinkle my nose every time he was mentioned. I had trouble believing he was a good guy if that makes sense. Ed redeemed himself as well, proving that he wasn't the bad guy that everyone thought he was and I was grateful that he did what he could to help Angel and her father. But most importantly, I really started to like Angel's dad. He was trying to better himself in this book after seeing Angel do so. It was nice to see that bond start to repair itself throughout the book. Redemption seemed to be a really strong subject in book #2.
As for new characters, I wasn't crazy about Sofia and was a bit annoyed that her story was left somewhat hanging when she was abruptly killed. It was never really pointed out in clear terms if she was a good or bad guy even though I was leaning towards double-agent since she appeared to be playing both sides. And the new doctor grated on my nerves. I had hoped Angel would kill her in the end like she did the head of security but on the flip side, it opens up room for a third book.
All in all, the characters remained true to their selves from the first book. The new characters added a nice tension to the storyline, which was just as wonderful like the first book. I was a bit worried as the second installments of a series tend to lose a bit of the spark that the first installment ignited but this book proved that theory wrong. It one again kept me on the edge of my seat, adding in new twists and turns that the first book left out and made it impossible for me to stop reading.
Best part of the entire book? When Angel promptly said "Braaaiiiins." My husband thought I had lost it upon bursting into laughter.
I do hope that Miss Rowland is planning on a third installment of this series as I'd love to read more about Angel and see what trouble she could get into. This is a definite must-read!
Angel is settling into her life as a zombie now, working in the morgue, eating her brains and dating her fellow zombie, Marcus. They’re a little wary from the threat of zombie hunters after the deaths in the last book and she’s still working to get her dad sorted out, but on the whole things are looking good.
ReplyDeleteBut then things get more complicated – a body appears that makes no sense at all to the police – and is connected not only to the zombies but also to the zombies that were murdered by Ed the zombie-hunter in the last book. Worse, the body is stolen at gunpoint from Angel and no-one believes her story – finding it easier to blame her, with her criminal record than to actually listen to her. Her job and her easy access to brains are under threat – and the clue trail points towards experiments and projects funded by zombies and possible conflict between them.
As if that weren’t enough, her parole officer reminds her that she needs to get her GED or she’ll violate her parole, which just highlights her lack of education and the massive class gulf between her and Marcus who is studying for his Masters. To make matters worse, his friends and his uncle, an old and powerful zombie, are all vastly more educated and more wealthy than she and they look down on her from the vantage point of their extravagant mansions.
And all of this is before they find they’ve stumbled into zombie politics and insidious conspiracies at the highest possible levels…
The plot and the mystery was complex and pretty well done. I did get close to lost a few times because of the weight of different people, different themes and different edges of the same platform. But part of that is because the mystery was held really well through most of the book and while I’m confused, so too is Angel. I honestly didn’t see the ending coming, not even close to it – there were multiple hints and, yes, in hindsight, clues that could have lead me there (I should have known to be alert for all the clever hints reading a Diana Rowland book! Where’s my flipchart?) but I was completely surprised when it all came together. There were plenty of twists, what I assumed was going to happened several times, didn’t – and the answers I was oh-so-sure I had were completely wrong.
I actually felt we were dealing with several subplots all running together and through that it was, perhaps, too much, but at the end they all came together into one, solid, interwoven story that also drew in the last book as well. Nothing was simple and nothing was what was assumed – and even when it draws on some very old tropes and very old story elements, it still surprised me because the journey to them was so unique.