Mandi Kaye @ Never Too Fond of Books

This is my first zombie book.Our story opens where countless stories have ended in the last twenty-six years: with an idiot - in this case, my brother Shaun - deciding it would be a good idea to go out and poke a zombie with a stick to see what happens.But the thing about it is that it's really not a zombie book. There are few actual zombie attacks. The book is about what life is like as society struggles to rebuild.At first, I had a hard time staying focused. I wasn't really into the book and thought for sure it would be a 2 or 3 star rating.But then everything changed.Politics, conspiracy, murder.I mean really - zombies as murder? That's brilliant!And the writing is top notch. There's a lot of information to be had - information about the virus and how it started, how it's treated or tested, how to kill zombies... it just goes on and on. But you never feel like you're reading an information dump. It's so skillfully woven into the story that you never even notice how much information is revealed until you're done.But what really pulled me in happened before the action started. The first third of the book is fairly political - the trio of main characters - Georgia, Shaun, and Buffy - were selected to follow presidential candidate Senator Peter Ryman on the campaign trail as official reporters/bloggers. And Grant's words about the campaign seem to be oh-so-relevant to our current state of affairs, that I couldn't help but read it as a political commentary on our own society.Governor Tate is a man who cares so much about freedom that he's willing to give it to you at gunpoint. He's a man who cares so deeply about our schools that he supports shutting down public education in favor of vouchers distributed only to schools with with government safety certifications.Do your research. Do your homework. Learn what this man would do to our country in the name of preserving a brand of freedom that is as  destructive as it is impossible to secure. Know your enemy.That's what freedom really means."You said the only way things could've gotten as bad as they did was if people were willing to take the first easy answer they could find and cling to it, rather than doing anything as complicated as actually thinking.""And you said that was human nature and I should be thankful we're smarter than they are," Shaun said. "And then you hit me."Our ancestors dreamed of a world without boundaries, while we dream new boundaries to put around our homes, our children, and ourselves. We limit our potential day after day in the name of a safety that we refuse to ever achieve. We took a world that was huge with possibility, and we made it as small as we could.But never fear - it's not all political in nature. There's lots of action and conspiracy. There are plot twists - oh yes, there are plot twists. Things happen that you would never in a million years have dreamed of happening.As I asked on Facebook last night, "Ever read a book where the ending just completely rocks your world? Yeah."So I leave you with that. This book rocked my world.