Angel continues to get her life together, aiming for her
GED, continuing to work at a job she loves and even working on her shaky relationship
with Marcus, setting new rules and aiming for a new beginning.
But the experiments on zombies are continuing – and her
own creations come back to haunt her, whether she wants to be a zombie-mama or
not. Whatever her misgivings about Pietro, she has little choice but to work
with him, but in doing so she learns more about him and his organisation and
reassesses how much she can trust him and how much she can forgive.
And then even mother nature conspires to make life more difficult
and a real life zombie horde, just like in the movies (well, almost).
This is a story about Angel. There are a lot of other
things going on, a lot of other things she’s involved in, but ultimately this
isn’t a story about them. This is about Angel, her life, her friends, her
family, her relationships. This is about how she fits into things, how she gets
involved in things and how she lives. It’s an extremely character driven story.
That isn’t to say there isn’t a lot happening – a lot of
really deep and fascinating things in this incredibly interesting world. Pietro
continues to run his organisation that Angel dubs the “zombie mafia” and their
competing experiments from a rival company and there’s all kinds of nuance and
implications from that
But we don’t centre on all of this – we centre on Angel,
how this affects her, how it puts demands on her and how she fits within these
zombie organisations. After the events of the last book, Angel’s definitely
very much involved even without her relationship with Marcus; but a disaster at
her house is as important to her as Pietro’s plots and machinations because
this is a book about Angel.
In terms of writing style, it’s perfect, it hits the
sweet spot. We have enough description without being inundated by it, we have
excellent pacing without being overwhelmed, all the elements in Angel’s life
are covered in a well balanced fashion without her ignoring things you’d think
she’d pay attention to. We get enough of Angel’s voice and thoughts to keep her
centred and see her grow, without so much as to turn it into one long Angel
monologue of angst and fee-fees. It’s balanced and paced well.
I love Angel as a character – she is so complex and she
has grown so incredibly since the first book. But her growth itself has been so
natural and has left its marks on her – because she has grown, she hasn’t just
magically transformed. So she’s a character who is still assailed by doubts and
low self-esteem – there are times when she looks around and can’t believe the
company she keeps, that she’s too much of a nobody who can’t possibly be around
these people. Or she thinks she can’t possibly do something – like pass her GED
– because she has such a record and expectation of failure behind her. At the
same time she’s a character who genuinely loves it and is almost surprised when
anyone praises her skills, her intelligence and her competence because she
appreciates the validation after a life with so little. And because she sees
her own growth and likes to see it recognised in others. Angel has her
insecurities but she recognises where and how she has grown. She knows she’s
achieved a lot, she knows her growth is impressive and she is justly proud of
that – and that’s so wonderful to see, a protagonist who is legitimately proud
of who they are and what they’ve achieved and not for some grand,
universe-saving act, but because she has turned her life around from where it was.
Which just adds more depth to her conflict with Marcus and his paternalism and why that creates such a rift between them – not just because treating her as incapable and weak and foolish is demeaning to her, but also because it preys on her insecurities and denies her accomplishments. It also may be why Pietro has managed to at least partially redeem himself in her eyes – he may keep secrets from her, he may play his own game, he may have used her – but he respects her throughout this book – her, her skills, her competence. He treats her as a woman full worthy of his time and attention, someone who is worth taking time out of his schedule to talk to or help. He’s a powerful, important man but still respects Angel.
I like Pietro’s evolution as well – he’s not just the
conniving bad guy, but he’s certainly conniving and sometimes bad. But he’s bad
with a purpose, he has a network of zombies that rely on him and he’s doing his
best for zombiekind. Sometimes he is unethical in doing so and he definitely
has an ends-justifies-the-means philosophy which opens up all kinds of debates
and questions; do you use the genius even if they’re evil? Do you use research
which has been obtained through unethical means? How much can you ask of your
undercover agents? Do you tolerate local, short term evil in the hope of
getting enough information to take down a larger evil? Pietro brings in a lot
of shades of grey that presents some unique challenges for Angel as well as
allowing her character to develop and further mature.
Speaking of complicated relationships – Angel and her
father are a wonderful one. It’s not a happy relationship, not by any stretch,
but both sides are trying. Angel’s turning her life around has prompted – or
perhaps shamed – her father to do the same but even that is complex and nuanced
and human. He’s trying, but it’s not easy and it’s frustrating and he does fail
and both of them continue to get angry with each other because they’re not
perfect people living perfect lives. And that failure prompts him to hide what
he does achieve – for fear of it failing again. It’s deep and it’s nuanced. We
even have a look at Angel’s school – and how utterly devastating it can be to
have either an undiagnosed or unaddressed condition like dyslexia.
This all, of course, goes extremely well with the series
ongoing analysis of class. Especially, the way people treat Angel, the mockery
she faces for shopping in thrift stores (though she gloriously refuses to be
ashamed and is quite proud of the fact she got such a great jacket so cheaply)
but also after her disaster, just how few resources she has and how hard it
would be for her to get back on her feet without friends. There was no real
support for her and the steps to get what little she could were convoluted and
difficult. Even beyond Angel’s own situation, there are class discussions
concerning people who have recently been made redundant and living on such
extremely low budgets.
We have some more inclusion – with several POC in all
factions lurking around, I don’t think any of them are anything close to a
major character; but there aren’t really any major characters except Angel
herself. Still, I don’t think any are in particularly high profile minor
character status, nor is the single gay character. They are there, however, and
there is an effort to make every crowd include some inclusion.
It’s another excellent addition to an excellent series.
Perhaps a bit descriptive at times, with a creeping need for repetitive internal
musing, but still an awesome book covering awesome issues and above all with a
truly excellent protagonist. This series is definitely up there as one of my
favourites and I’m beyond glad we found it
