The Social Potato Reviews

First and foremost, I love zombies. In 2012 alone, I've spent the first 4-5 months reading zombie novels only. Most of them weren't in the YA genre though, so I've been on a mission ever since to look for awesome YA novels (although I really doubt any could live up to Charlie Higson's The Enemy series). So just imagine my pleasant surprise when I saw this novel on NetGalley! Unfortunately, it didn't really live up to my rather high expectations. Even my love of zombies did not save this book.

Annoying Heroine

The heroine is one of the most irritating heroines I've ever had the displeasure to read. I'm not sure if it was her personality altogether, or just the ridiculous narrative that made me cringe sentence after sentence after sentence. See, here's the thing - the narrative is unique. At first glance, it does resemble a real teenager's voice. But it becomes too overbearing after a while and it felt ridiculous after a page or two. I think it was written that way in an attempt to make it more "relatable", "personal", or even "realistic", but it felt unnatural and forced. I just couldn't stomach all the attempts to insert slangs, to sound witty, to sound funny, when all of them fail bigtime. Since she was the only voice in the book, finishing it was a struggle. She was not only unrealistic, she was also condescending and judgemental. Ugh, Worst Heroine Award, anyone? It doesn't help that it incorporates abbreviations that should never,ever be seen in any form of literature. Examples of abbreviations? "FYI", "BTW"... yeah, go figure.

World-Building

World-building honestly felt pretty random to me. So there are necromancers who have the ability to revive the dead. They do it for people who cannot let go of their passed on loved ones. Despite having a lot of people depending on them, these necromancers feel a sense of isolation from the rest of the "normal" populace. These revived zombies are also oftentimes used as "pets" or "slaves" by their masters (or former relatives... how sick is that?). It felt to me a simple world - a bit bizarre, and quite random. I do appreciate the Egyptian references, though. They were fun to read.

Overall

The protagonist ruined this book for me. I could live with weird world-building, cardboard side characters, and the like, but if the one doing the narrative is someone like Molly, it just ruins everything else for me. I wouldn't recommend this. +1 for the Egyptian terms, though.