Publisher: St. Martin’s Griffin
Publish Date: January 18th, 2011
Source: Purchased
Goodreads

Rating: 4/5 – Survival of the fittest!

Synopsis: “One woman’s story as she blogs – and fights back – the zombie apocalypse”

Allison Hewitt and her five colleagues at the Brooks and Peabody Bookstore are trapped together when the zombie outbreak hits. Allison reaches out for help through her blog, writing on her laptop and utilizing the military’s emergency wireless network (SNET). It may also be her only chance to reach her mother. But as the reality of their situation sinks in, Allison’s blog becomes a harrowing account of her edge-of-the-seat adventures (with some witty sarcasm thrown in) as she and her companions fight their way through ravenous zombies and sometimes even more dangerous humans. -Goodreads

Thoughts: When picking books for my zombie feature, Allison Hewitt is Trapped was a pretty obvious choice for me. At the time of the zombie apocalypse, Allison works in a book store and then goes on to blog about her adventures. I was sold! Happily, for the most part this book is exactly what I was hoping for. Not only does the main characters love for literature come through, but she thankfully doesn’t actually remain trapped as that probably would have gotten a little stale.

Allison Hewitt is Trapped, is gruesome, touching and funny. For me, the most memorable aspect was the characters. Allison has a long way to go from bookstore to err… wherever she ends up, no spoilers here, and she meets a lot of different people along the way, who are all handling the end of the world in their own quirky manner. One character is pretty much Glen from The Walking Dead, and the love interest was kind of unexpected, but no one is boring and the dialogue will keep you entertained.

Not a lot of actual zombie fighting in this book, which works for my vision of the zombie apocalypse. When things are just getting going, you don’t run out with nothing but an axe and start hacking away and every mostly-dead baddie you see, you hide and scavenge. Obviously, that would be a pretty boring book, so things are significantly more interesting than that, without ever going overboard. The pacing works really well and I very rarely found myself rooting for a zombie attack, just to get the characters moving again.

The zombie lore of the book was a bit on the iffy side at times, which might bother a lot of fans of the genre.  So, fair warning… you will find zombie squirrels in this book. The blog post element might bug a few people as well, but I really liked it. I really enjoyed the comments from other survivors and was rooting for all of them as well, even though they only got a few lines at the end of some chapters. It’s the zombie apocalypse guys, we all have to work forever.

It’s fair to say that this wont be a book for everyone, but I really enjoyed it. Plus, trapped in a bookstore during the zombie apocalypse, there are worse fates I could imagine.

Don’t forget to enter the Zombie Dayz Giveaway for your chance to win Allison Hewitt is Trapped and two other zombie books!

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Second Opinions:
@Book Chick City
@Warpcore SF
@Graeme’s Fantasy Book Review