Dear TBR,
Yep, I came back for the zombies. The reading machine has slowed down a bit as both the CYBILS season and the time to finish drafting my latest novel has come, but I’ll catch up here shortly! Meanwhile…
DEAD CITY begins with Molly Bigelow accompanying a dead body in a bathroom. It’s… not what happens at normally at a fencing tournament on a Saturday, but Molly is …not normal. The reader soon finds this isn’t an exaggeration. It’s how she was raised. When Molly wanted to take ballet, her mother had her take Jeet Kune Do classes instead – because why not an obscure martial art instead of tulle and toe shoes like everyone else? Molly wanted to join the Brownies, but her mother encouraged her to join NYC’s Audubon Society Junior Birders – so Molly can now find and identify the sixty-eight varieties of bird known to inhabit the five boroughs of New York. Before she died, Molly’s mother was a pathologist, so Molly doesn’t mind hanging around morgues. Molly’s dad is a firefighter, so being around those in need of help – or dead – was a natural part of their lives, thus it’s kind of part of Molly’s life, too. She’s actually continued hanging around the morgue, finding it familiar and comforting. The morgue – and her mother’s good friend, Dr. Hidalgo, remind her of what used to be. To feel close to her mother, Molly even applies to attend the very nerdy but elite Metropolitan Institute of Science and Technology. Fellow student Natalie, Dr. Hidalgo’s intern, attends there, and she is the closet thing Molly has to a real friend.
Though Molly doesn’t love attending MIST, it’s not because it’s not a good school. It’s personal. Molly KNOWS she’s kind of odd, and though she tried her best, within the first weeks of classes, she found herself already running afoul of the unspoken social dynamics of junior high. But Natalie and her other Upper School friends join forces with Molly one day at lunch, and she doesn’t feel so alone anymore. Natalie, Grayson and Alex are brilliant, older, and fun — and Molly feels lucky to have them take an interest in her.
But when a strange man tries to attack Molly in the subway after school and Natalie runs to her rescue, Molly discovers exactly what their interest is about. They’re a secret society of zombie hunters. That’s unbelievable enough, but then Molly discovers that her mother was one too! Obviously, Molly is elated that there is yet one more golden link in the chain between her mother’s memory and herself. As she begins to learn her way around this new world, she discovers that she’s readier for this adventure than she ever believed. But eventually investigating the past brings Molly back to Dead City – a place where the only memories left will eventually fade – and where Molly life is in danger like it’s never been before. Trying to live up to her mother’s memory just might get her killed…
Although it’s clear from the cover and the grasping claws coming from underground that Dead City is Nothing Good, I was intrigued by the author’s choice to make it almost a unlawful neutral. That is, it’s full of the undead, but not all of them are evil. That’s a really fresh take on the zombie genre to me — most of the depictions are so broad brush and silly that it’s hard to take them seriously. There’s a tiny twist on the very last page of the book which will automatically ignite the desire in readers to read the next book tout suite — which though I didn’t see coming, I immediately cheered about, and thought of course!
Once again James Ponti writes an adventurously addictive action novel that immediately makes you want to reach for the next in the series.
Fresh onto the TBR:
- The Monstrous Kind, Lydia Gregovic
Until the next book, 📖
Still A Constant Reader
