Review of Dust & Decay

All right, it's been long enough. I've finally collected myself after finishing Dust & Decay, so here's the much overdue review, and the first of 2013! 

Dust & Decay, the second in Jonathan Maberry’s Rot & Ruin teen zombie series, lives up to its predecessor. If you haven’t read the first one, beware, there are some spoilers in here; I will keep them to a minimum since I hate spoiling things for others. I'm going to try and keep the spoilers down to a minimum... so, do yourself a favor and read the first one ASAP!

Picking up roughly seven months after the events of Rot & Ruin, we join Benny, his brother Tom, and friends Nix, Chong, and Lilah the Lost Girl as they begin their journey into the Ruin for hunt for the unimaginable object they saw in the sky after saving Nix from Charlie Pink-eye and taking down the abomination known as Gameland. The object was a jet, a relic from the time before First Night, but also a symbol that promises civilization beyond the Rocky Mountains. Tom has been preparing them for months to survive in the Ruin, and after a freak zombie attack inside the town, he decides now it is time for them to depart. Once they leave the safety of the town’s fences, Benny, Tom, Nix and Lilah will never come back to small Mountainside, so now the small group of friends must face some hard good-byes. Friendships are tested, convictions and dreams doubted, and blossoming love pushed aside as the small group sets out into the Ruin.

After a disastrous first day out in the Ruin, Benny and his friends face strange events, crazy bounty hunters, and even more bizarre behaviors from the zombies that soon turn their world—and perceptions of the world—on its ear. Zebras and rhinos are running rampant in the woods, zombies suddenly are faster and stronger, and the zombies are moving in large swarms that number in the thousands. And the most game-changing discovery the group comes across is… like I'd tell you that big spoiler?! These strange events are just the tip of the iceberg as the group moves steadily on to the east; old enemies emerge from the past, new twisted baddies threaten the future, while new allies give support to the present.

Maberry is deft at mixing terror and action with the equally terrifying confusion of teenage emotions and coming of age. In between fighting zombie hordes, dodging dangerous bounty hunters, and struggling with the mystery that is the zombie plague, Benny must find a balance between survival and his feelings for Nix. The closer he tries to get to her, the more she pushes back. In the wilds of the Ruin, is love a dangerous luxury that will get Benny and his friends killed? Benny, Nix, Lilah, and Chong struggle to figure out their place in the world, on that razor's edge of childhood and adulthood. Maberry's ability to draw you into the world of the characters (even the zombies!), make you feel for them and connect on a level that brings the reading experience to a whole new level... is uncanny. 

I cannot recommend Maberry's books enough. If you're looking for a great monster book that keeps true to the nature of the beast, Rot & Ruin is the series for you. 

On my scale of 1 (literary hari kari) to 10 (literary orgasmic bliss)... I give Dust & Decay a strong 9. Go get it.