Leigh reviewed on 7/17/2015 + 378 more book reviews

After a quarter century of zombie apocalypse, the world has learned to survive. Cope may be a more appropriate word. The protagonist in this novel, Temple, was born into it, being only 15 years old. Hence, her sense of the world is as warped as the world, itself.

Her physical and emotional journey are both far-reaching and somewhat episodic, with the accompaniment of a friend, which made me think of Huck_Finn. The characters she meets along the way range from very civilized to gruesome hillbilly. I wanted Temple to find happiness and rooted for her throughout the book. At one point, I had given up hope because of the situation she got herself into.

For a zombie book, there is very little undead action and that bothered me. Also, I quickly grew weary of Temple's inability to speak in any language but Southern Platitude. She was a bit too bitterly weathered to be believable, but it is a zombie novel, so I'll forgive her that.

Expect strong religious overtones; they are legion. Nearly every character will begin the putative inferences in one way or another upon initiating a conversation. The title, taken from a passage in the Bible, is perhaps the most appropriate one I've run across. Near the end of the novel, the reader figures it out.

That's what makes the ending the shocker it is. I had trouble processing it and still don't understand the motive, as complex as it was. The sense of honor, I suppose, is all a civilization has to cling to during a time like this, which is just as deformed and dysfunctional as the rotting dead roaming the earth.

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