Publisher: Tor Books
Publish Date: July 5th, 2011
Source: Purchased
Goodreads

Rating: 5/5 Zombies

Synopsis: The morning that the world ends, Katie is getting ready for court and housewife Jenni is taking care of her family. Less than two hours later, they are fleeing for their lives from a zombie horde.

Thrown together by circumstance, Jenni and Katie become a powerful zombie-killing partnership, mowing down zombies as they rescue Jenni’s stepson, Jason, from an infected campground.

They find sanctuary in a tiny, roughly fortified Texas town.  There Jenni and Katie find they are both attracted to Travis, leader of the survivors; and the refugees must slaughter people they know, who have returned in zombie form. -Goodreads

Review: Thanks to a well known TV show, I spent this summer falling in love with zombie fiction. It’s not about the zombies specifically but what people have to do in order to survive in extremely dire circumstances. Around that same time I saw a review for Rhiannon Frater’s zombie series and knew I had to read it. I’m so glad I did, as The First Days is exactly the kind of survival story I love to read. Add to that a truly endearing best friends relationship and these books easily became one of my favorite series. now, let’s talk book 1.

The First Days opens pretty horrifically and does a lot to set the tone of the book, but almost right away our two heroines are brought together and the awesomeness begins. Both Katie and Jenni struggle to figure out what’s going on but what’s really interesting is seeing how the people they encounter are reacting as the crisis unfolds, the zombie apocalypse isn’t exactly an easy thing to wrap your mind around.

This series is all about the characters, how they react to the situation and each other. While it starts off as two (and a dog) against the world, they meet more people as they go and some really interesting dynamics start to unfold.  Every kind of relationship is covered from parent-child to romantic. There are some hints right on the back cover at a pretty messy love triangle but it doesn’t unfold how you’d expect. I found myself rooting for both Katie and Jenni equally, which is a pretty rare thing. I think I liked Katie. Bit better but Jenni is so much fun and has a really interesting personal evolution. The apocalypse is always bound to bring out some interesting character traits.

The First Days wrapped up nicely and had something of a finality to it, but there are definitely more adventures (and probably tragedies) to come for this series and I literally cannot wait to read the next book in this series, which is why I’ll be starting it riiggghhhttt…. Now! (as of when I wrote this review in August).

Buy The First Days
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Second Opinions:
@Great Imaginations 
@Unabridged Andra
@Tynga’s Reviews