Dead of Night: A Zombie Novel (Dead of Night Series, 1)

A different twist for the Zombie lovers

I love zombie books and I try to read every one I can find. I was pretty elated when I saw the summary of this one. My favorite part of a zombie outbreak is the onset and the descent into chaos. Many writers skip this part but Maberry didn't so I was definitely stoked. While the description and overall story was pretty good, the dialogue was HORRIBLE. Here's some of the main issues. 1.) The main character, Dez, is a tough, hard as nails woman and you don't have to worry about forgetting that. Nearly every sentence from her is aggressive and over the top. It makes it impossible to even like her. 2.) Her romantic subplot with another main character, Trout, is so forced and cringe that you'll crease your face. They literally have breakthrough moments during zombie attacks. The shoehorned romance is something it seemed like his editor told him he had to include but he didn't want to. 3.) Maberry crafts a world where zombies aren't even a concept. Almost literally, the main characters are deliberating over what something would be if it were undead and eating people yet they name "vampires" or "ghouls" but can't even think of zombies??? Come on. Overall, it was an above average book. He did a good job world-building but the characters were so artificial and unlikeable that you'll find yourself not caring if they live or die.

I enjoyed seeing how the zombie apocalypse happened. In some cases, most zombie media don't tell you how the apocalypse came to be. However, nothing happened for the first 100 pages. Assuming this is a Rot and Ruin prequel, I don't understand how everyone apparently knew about the zombie virus yet no one was prepared for it? I don't think it's that big of a deal, though. I would recommend!

Great plot, there's really only two characters I could do without, and of course there are zombies. Definitely check out his other books as well. I've been a fan for about 6 years now.