Review: Zombie Nation

Zombie Nation by Samantha Warren
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I love a good zombie read, so of course I was going to give this one a read.

Zombie Nation is the first in the Zombie Juice series, and if it is an indication of what the series is to be like… well, be prepared for an addictive series. Whilst the zombie fighting scenes were rather lacking, it has everything else you need for a good zombie book. Questionable characters. Questionable situations. Questionable motives. Basically, a lot of questions. Not in the bad way of ‘I have no clue as to what is going on’ but in the good way of ‘I want to know more and find out all I can’.

It’s a super short read, one that can be completed in next to no time at all, and yet it manages to give you everything you could expect from an intriguing zombie tale. We’re introduced to the main characters, getting to understand their way of life in the zombie infested world. We get to know the community, how humanity is dealing with the outbreak. We get to see a small section of the world, and yet we’re promised to see so much more in the future books.

In a way, this one reminded me of the Newsflesh trilogy. Mira Grant gave us a zombie series with multiple layers, without forcing zombie scenes onto every page. This one is much the same. We have a bit of mystery and a lot of coming of age. If you ever wanted to know what teenage life in a gated community with the fear of zombies attacking is like, here is your answer. It is such a simple notion, and yet you’re pulled in from the start. Moreover, there is such promise of what is to come. Multiple aspects are hinted at throughout, and yet we’re given no real answers about anything.

In fact, if I’m being completely honest, I wish we’d been given some kind of indication of where things were going. The mysterious aspect of the zombie juice was introduced, and yet we know nothing more than the basics. Unfortunately, the basics are things we could have guessed ourselves. I wanted something more, something I didn’t work out. I would have much rather a longer read giving us some kind of indication of what we can expect from the whole zombie juice notion. Don’t get me wrong, it is introduced brilliantly in this. The zombie juice takes a backseat to the coming of age story, it makes an appearance to let you know it will be important throughout the series, but beyond that there isn’t much. I just wanted to know more in this first book.

Overall, it was a fun read. I’m not sure where the series will go – there are so many possibility and I feel as though we weren’t given much by way of clues – but I’m excited to see how things will end. My fingers are crossed that this series will turn out to be a lot of fun.

As a final note, I would like to thank the author for allowing me to advance read this in exchange for an honest review. It was certainly enough to leave me curious as to where things are going to go next.

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