Death of a Saint

by Lily Herne

Some secrets are so unthinkable you can't even admit them to yourself . . .

Lele, Ginger, Ash and Saint - aka the Mall Rats - are hiding out in the Deadlands, a once-prosperous area of Cape Town, now swarming with the living dead. Exiled from the city enclave for crimes against the Resurrectionist State, the Rats face a stark choice: return and risk capture - or leave Cape Town and go in search of other survivors.

But what if the rest of South Africa is nothing but a zombie-riddled wasteland? Now Lele has discovered the truth about why the lurching dead leave them alone, she can't bring herself to tell the rest of the gang. And she's not the only Mall Rat harbouring a dangerous secret . . . Can the friends' survive on the road if all they have is each other? Or will their secrets tear them apart?

• ISBN10: 147210093X
• ISBN13: 9781472100931
• Publish Date: 17 October 2013
• Publish Status: Active
• Publish Country: GB
• Publisher: Little, Brown Book Group
• Imprint: Much-In-Little
• Edition: Digital original
• Format: eBook (EPUB)
• Pages: 384
• Language: English

Reviews

I read the first Mall Rats book, Deadlands, about a year ago and I remember enjoying it. When I started Death of a Saint, my mind was hazy about what happened in the first book. But as the story progressed, I began to remember a small portion of what went down in Deadlands.

For this review, I'm going to break down the aspects of this book:

The Setting
Most dystopian/post-apocalyptic novels are set in America, but the Mall Rats series is set in South Africa (which was really cool!). As a South African, I was easily able to understand the places that were being described and the references and satire that was seen through-out the novel. The road trip that the Mall Rats went on allowed me to fully comprehend the instability and destruction that the zombie apocalypse had caused.

The Zombie Aspect
As I have probably mentioned before, I hate horror and I'm not a huge fan of zombie stories. Surprisingly, I enjoyed the original concept of the what the zombies are, what they do, how people become zombies and the politics and Guardians involved in their creation. It was interesting and kept me hooked.

The Characters
The Mall Rats series has a diverse group of characters (people of different races, sexual orientations, languages and behavior) which is extremely rare in the world of fiction. I also enjoyed meeting the Mall Rats again. Ash, Ginger, Saint and Lele act as one huge happy family with their shares of ups and downs. They also meet many new characters, good and bad, along the way. And while I do support team Lashle (Ash and Lele), I felt as though Ash behaved like a total jerk towards Lele and that really annoyed me. But I did enjoy learning about his past.

The Point of View
Death of a Saint is told from Lele and Saint's POV. I admire the strength and smarts of Lele and Saint, but their POV's was done poorly. Their POV's are told in alternating chapters, and I understood why Saint's POV was necessary. But Lele and Saints POV was exactly the same. Every time I would have to page back to see whose POV the chapter was from, I would get extremely confused.

All in all, Death of a Saint was a great book with cool characters, an original zombie concept, a interesting setting,plenty of twists and turns and an ending that killed me! ... I actually feel like picking up another Zombie book!

[celinenyx]

Death of a Saint is the second book in the Mall Rats series by a South-African mother-daughter writing team. Except for being original by writing about a non-US/European setting, they also manage to innovate the zombie genre by having realistic characters.

The Mall Rats are not very loved in the enclave, and decide to find out what happened to the people outside of Cape Town. Within the group secrets are tearing them apart.

For the major part of the book Lele, Ash, Saint and Ginger are on the road. It reads like any other road trip novel to be honest. I'm not really a fan of road trip stories, the constant moving around is pretty boring. Luckily there is intrigue aplenty, as many of the characters are holding secrets. During their travels a few new characters are introduced, which seem to be here to stay. It was interesting to see more of the zombie-infested South-Africa Ms Herne created.

What I like most about these books is that the characters are more diverse than they are in most YA books. There are plenty of black characters, white characters, gay characters, old, young... In the YA genre most books are completely white-washed, and is the gay character doomed to be the stereotypical gay best friend. Saint, the lesbian character, just has so much more to offer than just her being a lesbian. Not in the least the fact that she can kick some serious butts.

Though I love the diverse characters, I'm afraid the writing didn't always live up to that. Death of a Saint is written from the dual perspectives of Lele and Saint, but their chapters sounded exactly the same. So truly the same that I would have to skim back to see who was speaking. I wasn't expecting their internal monologue to be this similar. The only difference I could discern was that Lele had some inner whining about Ashe, and Saint's thoughts were more balanced. But I think this dual perspective could have been done better. Saint and Lele in the story aren't the same person, so their thoughts shouldn't sound so similar either.

Death of a Saint was very much a middle book. It's interesting in itself, but you get the feeling that it's a book needed to explain the running up to the third book. It ends on a pretty big cliffhanger. I still really enjoyed the character dynamics (oh and how I love that the main character doesn't seem to be stuck with a "true love", but has a normal love life for once). One of the high points of the book for me if when Ginger adopts a baby hyena. I can't wait to read The Army of the Lost to find out more, because that one promises to be pretty epic.