Dread Nation

At the battle of Gettysburg, the dead began to walk, changing history forever. Jane McKeene was born only a few days after that historic event, and she has never known a world where humanity isn’t threatened by the ravenous hunger of their own dead. Under the Native and Negro Reeducation Act, Jane and other black children are required to go to combat schools and then enter patrols to fight the dead. Jane attends the prestigious Miss Preston’s School of Combat in Baltimore, and upon graduation, she is expected to go into service to a wealthy white woman, becoming her personal protector. Jane isn’t much interested in becoming a companion. Instead, she wants to return to the Kentucky plantation of her birth, where she hopes her mother is still alive. But Jane’s plans are derailed by a massive conspiracy, one that will see her struggling to survive in both the undead and some all too human threats. From the start, Dread Nation presents a compelling and gripping narrative. I may or may not have stayed up until 2 AM reading it. Okay, I totally did. It’s just so good! The pacing is fast, and there’s plenty of action. It’s so easy to promise yourself, “just one more chapter…” until you’ve finished the entire book. Jane is a wonderful protagonist, and I adored her narrative voice. She’s smart and strong willed, entirely capable. She’s also got just a touch of sarcasm to her, but not enough to get the point where it’s overwhelming or annoying. Oh, and the narrative briefly mentions that she’s bi, and there’s an ace supporting character! I’m so, so happy about this. “See, the problem in this world ain’t sinners, or even the dead. It is men who will step on anyone who stands in the way of their pursuit of power.” When trying to convince my friends to read Dread Nation, I’ve been giving the elevator pitch of, “Black girl fights both zombies and racism. Which is worse? Spoiler alert, it’s probably the racism.” Dread Nation obviously deals a whole lot with race and racism. Only black children are trained to fight the zombies, and they’re expected to protect white families. In fact, white people begin coming up with racist pseudo-science to explain why this should be. I’ve read other historical zombie stories where the divisions between people fall away in the face of the undead. Dread Nation takes a different view — in times of trouble, bigotry only increases. One of the things I love about Dread Nation is how the most important relationship is between two female characters, Jane and Katherine. Katherine is a white-passing girl at Miss Preston’s school, and she and Jane are initially at odds. During the course of the story, events throw them together. Their alliance is uneasy to begin with, but by the end they are fast friends. I can’t tell you how much I loved their relationship arc! It’s also particularly wonderful to see a YA novel that prizes friendship over romance. While there’s definite hints of potential romances for Jane, it’s mostly left as something for the sequels to explore. Each chapter begins with an excerpt, either from a letter from Jane to her mother or vice versa. I really liked this decision. Jane’s past and her relationship with her mother is a huge driving force. We get flashbacks to it throughout the book, but the excerpts from letters really help to strengthen the reader’s belief in their relationship. It is worth mentioning that some Native American readers have critiqued the Native representation in Dread Nation. See Debbie Reese’s comments on the American Indians in Children’s Literature website, for instance. Overall, my experience reading Dread Nation was wonderful. I’m sure this will be one of my favorite books of the year, and I can’t wait for book two!

I loved almost everything about this book. The first half dragged in a few places, but once the girls left the school, everything clipped along at a steady, entertaining pace. I'm not entirely sure how I feel about Native American rep, or that the concept of Native boarding schools was taken and used in the manner it was. I'm also not sure if it's my place to really comment on it, though, because I'm neither black nor Native. So I'll leave that thought as it is. I loved the world-building, the tension, the fight scenes. I loved Jane's unapologetic personality. She's ruthless when she needs to be and doesn't seem to have any hangups about that, which is kind of refreshing. She and Katherine (who, honestly, I was rooting for as a couple until finding out that Katherine has zero interest in a romantic or physical relationship with anyone) have such good chemistry on-page. Some very minor nitpicks... Big Sue was mentioned briefly at the beginning as being Jane's real only friend at school, but then she was never mentioned again until once much, much later on in the book. Jackson's appearances also felt a little convenient at times. He always seemed to pop up out of nowhere. That said, the side characters were all wonderful. Even Lily, who we didn't get too much of, seems like she's going to be a little fireball in later books. Katherine was one of my faves. I'm *not* entirely looking forward to this implied love triangle I think we're going to end up with, but we'll see. Some authors can pull it off, and my dislike of love triangles is a personal thing rather than any kind of real reflection on the book itself. The themes of racism in this book are hard-hitting, and Ms. Ireland did a fantastic job with it. No punches pulled. While I'm not normally big on cliffhanger endings, this one left off at a perfect spot, and I'm super excited for what comes next.

Wow! Wow! Wow! So much fun! 5 very enthusiastic stars for the audiobook as narrated by Bahni Turpin. (I alternated between the audio and Kindle versions.) I'd been putting this book off for quite a while and boy, do I regret that! This is the second book I've read in as many months that follows a tough chick in an alternate timeline where something supernatural has altered American history. I'm not sure what that genre is called, but gimme more -- I love it! In Dread Nation, we're introduced to a world in which the Civil War was interrupted when the dead suddenly started acting decidedly very undead. We follow Jane, a young woman born just days before the undead appeared, as she studies at Miss Preston’s School of Combat in Baltimore. Her classes there teach her both fighting and etiquette skills as is required by the Native and Negro Reeducation Act. Most graduates of the school hope to be assigned as an Attendant to one of the rich white women, to act as a bodyguard-cum-chaperone. The alternative often means heading to the front lines to keep the shamblers (zombies/undead) at bay. Although the shamblers (zombies/undead) are definitely very present in this story, instead of being the real focus, they act mostly as a vehicle to explain this alternate world and to add a bit of excitement here and there. Don't get me wrong, the battle scenes are definitely tons of fun, but this book has much deeper undertones than that. It's not difficult at all to draw comparisons between the misguided morality, political shenanigans, and outright unabashed bigoted actions portrayed in this book with what's been increasingly in the public eye over the past few years. In fact, the scariest, tensest scenes in this book have nothing to do with shambler attacks and everything to do with how terribly cruel power-hungry humans can be. I love the characters Justina Ireland has created here. Jane is snarky and strong, but never fell into the cliched "quirky talent always saves the day" role. She is definitely flawed, and does not escape her mistakes comeuppance-free. The supporting characters are mostly all very well fleshed out and believable. A couple of characters do, at times, seem a bit like caricatures, but that was very minor, and it's possible it was exacerbated by the narration. Speaking of the narrator, now I get the Bahni Turpin love (I should never have doubted you, Erica!). Sign me up, I'm sold, and I'm diving into some other books she's narrated in the very near future. I strongly recommend this one to anyone who enjoys a rough-and-tumble action book with a snarky MC. I cannot wait to get my hands on the sequel!

Los bordes de la páginas están mal :/ , se mira como si no hubiera sido cortado de una buena manera.

I’ve been anticipating the Australian release of this book for over a year and OH MY GOD IT WAS WORTH THE WAIT. Jane McKeene is the definition of a kick butt female lead! She’s great with weapons, feisty, hilariously obnoxious, stubborn, smart, and she has so much agency. There’s nothing about her I didn’t like and she truly felt like a person rather than just a character - which is no easy feat! I also adored her narration and I could practically hear her voice and accent in my head! The pacing and plot were also fantastic. I initially thought the story would be wholly set in the school in Baltimore, but there’s a prairie element to the story that elevates it to another level. The story is tense, action-packed, and nails that eerie feeling of “something isn’t right here”. And while it’s well-rounded, impactful, and wrapped up nice enough to be a standalone, there's enough ambiguity and potential to go further. Every character in the book is compelling, interesting, and has a clear purpose. I adored Katherine as a side character, loved and wanted to know more about Gideon, Redfern, and the Duchess, and the villains were downright HATEFUL. With good villains you either wanna bone em or fight em, and it was definitely the latter here. They were just SO vile! And refreshingly, there’s no romance! There are hints of romantic feelings, but these characters have their priorities right: they’re not here to shack up, they’re here to survive. Slavery and racism are central themes in this story, and obviously as a non-black reviewer I can’t speak to how well these elements were executed. To my ignorant self it read well, felt contextualised well to the (alternate) time period, and the racism was deliberately uncomfortable without ever veering toward exploitative or gratuitous. There’s some interesting discourse here about fair passing privilege and the race equivalent of the gay/trans panic defence. And I liked that the author always specifies a character’s skin colour instead of just limiting it to the POC as other authors are wont to do. The author’s note also includes some valuable context about how Native people were treated during this time, and the real events that informed her portrayal of the school and the town. This book was honestly worth every minute of the agonisingly wait. I wish I had the language to properly articulate how great it is, because I could never do it justice! It’s strong and well-rounded and it’s already shot to the top of the list of my fave reads of 2019.

I loved everything about this book and its sequel. I am currently doing a PhD on racial and intersectional health inequalities, and funnily enough this book touches on a lot of the themes I find in my research. Instead it just does it in a really entertaining and fun way. I love the charismatic nature of Jane, and the nail-biting moments of this book. Just wishing Justina Island would make another.

Spent an excellent moment reading this entertaining story. Can't wait to read the sequel !