Friday, August 14, 2015

Even White Trash Zombies Get the Blues by Diana Rowland


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.

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A great follow-up to the impressive first book in this series, Angel is every bit as loveable in this book as she was before. Perhaps even more so in some ways, for she continues to come more and more into her own as time goes on. Though this one gets into some tropes that I personally don't really care for much, it was still a very enjoyable book and quite engaging to listen to (I did the audiobook version for various reasons.)



Angel started to rise above her white trash roots in book one of the series and she continues to do so in this book as well. What's more, where she had still been primarily focused on the here and now throughout the first book, only looking to get through one day at a time, in this one she starts to look ahead some. She starts to ask herself what she wants from life and starts to realize that she does potentially have options beyond her day-to-day existence as a morgue tech. Thoughts of going to college, a previously way-beyond-her-reach idea start to come to her and she begins to realize that the idea isn't as impossible or undesirable as it once seemed. She also begins to question her relationships and to stand up for herself more, demanding to be treated as an equal and as an intelligent human being instead of as an ignorant girl from the wrong side of town.

I'll admit that many aspects of this particular story didn't appeal to me as much because they involve tropes I don't really care for or that I think have become overused, particularly in urban fantasy settings. Still, Angel's character development was fascinating to heartening to watch, and revelations about zombie society and how it works (and that it even exists) were interesting. Do I wish things didn't take the direction they did here? Perhaps. But I'll definitely be staying on board with this series to see more of Angel and to see if the larger story at work pans out in ways more to my liking.

Despite my quibbles with the tropes involved, I'd still definitely recommend this book and series to anyone who likes urban fantasy and/or zombie fiction. Angel is a delightful and inspirational character, and I look forward to seeing how she'll deal with future challenges.

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