What Remains (Dead World #1) by Kay Holland
Title: What Remains
Series: Dead World, #1
Author: Kay Holland
Published: Indie Inked; 2013
141 pages, kindle edition
Source: Netgalley
Description (from Goodreads):
Project Fed. It was supposed to be the answer to hunger, but
instead, it was the destruction of the world as we knew it. The growth of chemically enhanced "super" fruits and vegetables began in unmarked farms across the Nations, as well as their distribution in small towns. Within hours of Project Fed's first delivery and primary consumption, something far beyond expectancy was unleashed. Something far beyond what anyone could help.
Four months later, Seventeen year old Max Cade is trying to
survive amongst what remains of her old life. In an effort to escort an awry "Doctor" from one camp to the next, she will have to reintroduce her two young friends to the horrors beyond their shelter that she so badly wanted to shield them from. Getting there was supposed to be the easy part, but when travelling through a world of ruin, sometimes the undead have other plans.
instead, it was the destruction of the world as we knew it. The growth of chemically enhanced "super" fruits and vegetables began in unmarked farms across the Nations, as well as their distribution in small towns. Within hours of Project Fed's first delivery and primary consumption, something far beyond expectancy was unleashed. Something far beyond what anyone could help.
Four months later, Seventeen year old Max Cade is trying to
survive amongst what remains of her old life. In an effort to escort an awry "Doctor" from one camp to the next, she will have to reintroduce her two young friends to the horrors beyond their shelter that she so badly wanted to shield them from. Getting there was supposed to be the easy part, but when travelling through a world of ruin, sometimes the undead have other plans.
My Thoughts:
1.5 stars
Sigh. What can I say...? This sucked to put it bluntly. In more polite words: this was far from what I was hoping for. What Remains is my first zombie book. Well, not technically. I have read books such as The Immortal Rules and Taste which have zombie-like creatures in them (Rabids and Zhamvy) but I haven't read a book about your typical brain-eating, undead, all-gore-included zombies. I was exciting for that very reason to start this, and while the zombie lore didn't disappoint, every single other aspect of this did...
The characters were terrible, simply horrible. Max is our protagonist and she is one of the most hypocritical and simply mean characters that I have ever had the displease of reading about. I would call her a bitch - yeah, I am not in a great mood so excuse the language - yet that term brings to mind Mean Girls and hormonal teenage girls tearing each other's hair out. No, Max was worse than that. She was selfish to the point of leaving others behind to a grisly and horrible death for no better reason than they annoyed her. She blamed everyone for her problems and never stopped to think that maybe she should do something about them instead of whining and blaming others. She was disrespectful and plain old rude to people trying to help her and the things she yelled at them for were things she had already done herself - hypocrite! She complained about people moping all the time when all she did was whine. She was sexist and judging. She had a screaming match with her boyfriend that ended in blows (well, her slapping him) because he asked her to move in with her and she didn't want to because she believed the male soldiers in her unit might think she was weak for living with a guy - why they would think that is a sign of weakness is beside me, especially since one of the team members has a pregnant wife who he lives with. There are far worse examples to the type of person Max is, this being one of the nicest things she did, but I don't want to spoil too much about the plot so I'll leave at that.
The other characters were all meaningless. Not only did the lack character and charm but I was pretty certain that Max would just leave them to be eaten alive by zombies at some point so you didn't bother getting attached.
The plot was dull to say the least. The prologue had a tonne of suspenseful action and drama with a lot of blood and gore yet the rest of the book was just boring. The zombie fighting scenes were good at for the first few - I really loved the fact that we were spared no gore and got all the gross action - but once the scenes started to be repeated over a few times, I got bored with them.
One of my biggest problems was the fact that the blurb gave more detail to the actual zombie apocalypse than the book does. That isn't how its supposed to work! The description talks about a government mistake called Project Feed that caused people to turn into zombies. We didn't even hear about a possible cause for the apocalypse until 73% in when a character mentions that the virus (that turns you into a zombie) was transmitted in water. Hallelujah, finally we get some answers! Yeah, no. We have to wait a bit more before we find out any more. Then it is revealed one of the main characters has known this all along but didn't figure it was important to mention it. Wait, what? You didn't think it was important to tell your friends that drinking water could turn them into flesh-eating zombies? Some friend you are!
In the end, I was bored for the entire course of this book and with the added horrible characters, I really couldn't get into this. I appreciated the zombie lore at first but quickly got over it. This was not a great read and I wouldn't be quick to recommend it.
Note: a copy was provided courtesy of Kay Holland and Indie Inked, through Netgalley, in exchange for an honest review. No compensation was given or taken during this process.
Sigh. What can I say...? This sucked to put it bluntly. In more polite words: this was far from what I was hoping for. What Remains is my first zombie book. Well, not technically. I have read books such as The Immortal Rules and Taste which have zombie-like creatures in them (Rabids and Zhamvy) but I haven't read a book about your typical brain-eating, undead, all-gore-included zombies. I was exciting for that very reason to start this, and while the zombie lore didn't disappoint, every single other aspect of this did...
The characters were terrible, simply horrible. Max is our protagonist and she is one of the most hypocritical and simply mean characters that I have ever had the displease of reading about. I would call her a bitch - yeah, I am not in a great mood so excuse the language - yet that term brings to mind Mean Girls and hormonal teenage girls tearing each other's hair out. No, Max was worse than that. She was selfish to the point of leaving others behind to a grisly and horrible death for no better reason than they annoyed her. She blamed everyone for her problems and never stopped to think that maybe she should do something about them instead of whining and blaming others. She was disrespectful and plain old rude to people trying to help her and the things she yelled at them for were things she had already done herself - hypocrite! She complained about people moping all the time when all she did was whine. She was sexist and judging. She had a screaming match with her boyfriend that ended in blows (well, her slapping him) because he asked her to move in with her and she didn't want to because she believed the male soldiers in her unit might think she was weak for living with a guy - why they would think that is a sign of weakness is beside me, especially since one of the team members has a pregnant wife who he lives with. There are far worse examples to the type of person Max is, this being one of the nicest things she did, but I don't want to spoil too much about the plot so I'll leave at that.
The other characters were all meaningless. Not only did the lack character and charm but I was pretty certain that Max would just leave them to be eaten alive by zombies at some point so you didn't bother getting attached.
The plot was dull to say the least. The prologue had a tonne of suspenseful action and drama with a lot of blood and gore yet the rest of the book was just boring. The zombie fighting scenes were good at for the first few - I really loved the fact that we were spared no gore and got all the gross action - but once the scenes started to be repeated over a few times, I got bored with them.
One of my biggest problems was the fact that the blurb gave more detail to the actual zombie apocalypse than the book does. That isn't how its supposed to work! The description talks about a government mistake called Project Feed that caused people to turn into zombies. We didn't even hear about a possible cause for the apocalypse until 73% in when a character mentions that the virus (that turns you into a zombie) was transmitted in water. Hallelujah, finally we get some answers! Yeah, no. We have to wait a bit more before we find out any more. Then it is revealed one of the main characters has known this all along but didn't figure it was important to mention it. Wait, what? You didn't think it was important to tell your friends that drinking water could turn them into flesh-eating zombies? Some friend you are!
In the end, I was bored for the entire course of this book and with the added horrible characters, I really couldn't get into this. I appreciated the zombie lore at first but quickly got over it. This was not a great read and I wouldn't be quick to recommend it.
Note: a copy was provided courtesy of Kay Holland and Indie Inked, through Netgalley, in exchange for an honest review. No compensation was given or taken during this process.
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