Book# 76 of 2011...

The Dead (Enemy #2) by Charlie Higson

From Goodreads:

THE DEAD begins one year before the action in THE ENEMY, just after the Disaster. A terrible disease has struck everyone over the age of sixteen, leaving them either dead or a decomposing, flesh-eating creature. The action starts in a boarding school just outside London where all the teachers have turned into zombies. Together they begin a terrifying journey to find safety, and home.

My take:

4 out of 5 stars. Lots of good action but it was pretty predictable. I was never really worried that the kids wouldn't make it and you never really got to know any of the main characters. They played a bit flat for me.

Book# 75 of 2011

Patient Zero (Joe Ledger #1) by Jonathan Maberry

From Goodreads.com:

When you have to kill the same terrorist twice in one week there's either something wrong with your world or something wrong with your skills... and there's nothing wrong with Joe Ledger's skills. And that's both a good, and a bad thing. It's good because he's a Baltimore detective that has just been secretly recruited by the government to lead a new taskforce created to deal with the problems that Homeland Security can't handle. This rapid response group is called the Department of Military Sciences or the DMS for short. It's bad because his first mission is to help stop a group of terrorists from releasing a dreadful bio-weapon that can turn ordinary people into zombies. The fate of the world hangs in the balance....

My take:

3 out of 5 stars. I didn't love it but I didn't hate it. What really killed it for me was all the science-y stuff about the virus that killed it for me. I'm not a scientific person by nature so when the characters would start talking about the microbiology of it all I tended to tune out until there was action. I honestly don't think that I'll pursue reading the rest of the series.

Book# 74 of 2011...

Rise Again, A Zombie Thriller by Ben Tripp

From Goodreads.com:

A MYSTERIOUS CONTAGION. MASS HYSTERIA. SUDDEN DEATH.
And a warning that would come all too late . . .

Forest Peak, California. Fourth of July. Sheriff Danielle Adelman, a troubled war veteran, thinks she has all the problems she can handle in this all-American town after her kid sister runs away from home. But when a disease-stricken horde of panicked refugees fleeing the fall of Los Angeles swarms her small mountain community, Danny realizes her problems have only just begun—starting with what might very well be the end of the world. Danny thought she had seen humanity at its worst in war-torn Iraq, but nothing could prepare her for the remorseless struggle to survive in a dying world being overrun by the reanimated dead and men turned monster. Obsessed with finding her missing sister against all odds, Danny’s epic and dangerous journey across the California desert will challenge her spirit . . . and bring her to the precipice of sanity itself. . . .

Filled with adventurous human drama—and shocking inhuman horror—Rise Again marks a vivid and powerful fiction debut.

My take:

3 out of 4 stars. A thriller for sure but I didn't love the end.

Book# 71 of 2011...

The Eleventh Plague by Jeff Hirsch

From Goodreads.com:

The wars that followed The Collapse nearly destroyed civilization. Now, twenty years later, the world is faced with a choice—rebuild what was or make something new.

Stephen Quinn, a quiet and dutiful fifteen-year-old scavenger, travels Post-Collapse America with his Dad and stern ex-Marine Grandfather. They travel light. They keep to themselves. Nothing ever changes. But when his Grandfather passes suddenly and Stephen and his Dad decide to risk it all to save the lives of two strangers, Stephen's life is turned upside down. With his father terribly injured, Stephen is left alone to make his own choices for the first time.

Stephen’s choices lead him to Settler's Landing, a lost slice of the Pre-Collapse world where he encounters a seemingly benign world of barbecues, baseball games and days spent in a one-room schoolhouse. Distrustful of such tranquility, Stephen quickly falls in with Jenny Tan, the beautiful town outcast. As his relationship with Jenny grows it brings him into violent conflict with the leaders of Settler's Landing who are determined to remake the world they grew up in, no matter what the cost.

My take:
4 out of 5 stars. I hope there is a sequal to this book. I'm intrested in finding out what happens to Stephen.