Litchick's Hit List

There’s one line that really sums up this book. 

“Here we go, chasing Alice back down the rabbit hole.”

Yup, that. I know you’re probably thinking “Wut?” but just trust me on this one. If it wasn’t an intentional rabbit hole or if it wasn’t done this well it could be a disaster, I get that, but the great thing about this book is that it is intentional. It moves from one “genre” to the next, forces you to accept its twists and turns and makes no apologies for it. 

Still, with the wrong MC it could tank. Fear not, my friends, Jack is the perfect MC for a book like this. He’s adaptable, a survivor, and even though he’s constantly on the verge of snapping due to the overload of “What the actual fuck?!” in his life, he somehow manages to roll with the punches, to successfully traverse that razor edge between self-control and insanity. 

I’m sure you’re wondering what the hell I’m talking about so I’ll try to explain what I mean without confusing you. 

This book starts off with a zombie apocalypse. I mentioned in a status update that diving into the first chapter is like tossing a hand grenade and I’m sticking with that analogy. You’re given one page of ‘prepare yourself’ before the pin is pulled. It starts off with full blown gore and some pretty harrowing scenes. But then something I’ve never come across in a zombie book happens, the zombies begin to die off. You see, the virus that infected them appears to have a shelf life. 

From there it becomes incredibly suspenseful because we all know that zombies have an ugly little habit of not really staying dead, and in a world littered with their bloated, rotting corpses I’m sure you can imagine the tension you’d feel waiting for one of them to jump up and take a bite out of someone. 

Another unique thing about this virus is that it only targeted adults so now we have nothing but child survivors. Enter Lord of the Flies feels. Kids can be assholes, especially left to their own devices, and as Jack and his little sister Claire try to make their way in this new world, we encounter more than our fair share of them. 

So now we have what you could call a dystopian and Jack and Claire are joined by other survivors, a pink-haired girl named Jade and an older boy named Sam that looks eerily similar to Jack. Then we meet still more children and two of these come with special powers. So now we have a paranormal dystopian? And then…are those elves?! 

Stop. Just stop it. This book is round, don’t try to fit it into a square peg. My advice is to emulate this MC and put your big girl panties on. Let this story play out in front of your eyes and I guarantee you’ll enjoy it far more than if you try to make it match some sort of preconceived expectations. 

I had a blast with this book, in fact, I needed this book to help me get through another one I was reading. This was my consolation prize, my reward to myself for making it through that other piece of…“literature”, and if I hadn’t intentionally paced myself because of this, I would’ve finished it in one sitting. 

Also, that ending… O__O

NEED MOAR!!!

I’d recommend this book for anyone that can think outside of the box or is looking for a well written and truly unique story that’s full of action, suspense, plot twists, awesome world building and one fantastic and highly likeable MC.