Red Hill

by Jamie McGuire

[Kelly]

http://www.divabooknerd.com/2013/12/red-hill-by-jamie-mcguire.html
The premise of Red Hill sounded incredible, a survival zombie apocalypse romance. I was curious to see what Jamie McGuire was able to create, I quickly realised that it wasn't a whole lot. Told from three points of view, Scarlet the single mother who is trying to find her children, Nathan who is a newly single parent escaping with daughter Zoe and Miranda the college student. All three are trying to flee the city and headed towards neighboring country towns, inevitably all finding themselves at Red Hill. Scarlet had always admired her work colleagues home on the hill, as being one place that would remain untouched if the world ended. Nathan is heading to a neighboring town and Miranda's destination is Red Hill. Mix in the walking dead, or those infected and you would have thought that it would make for an interesting read. It did... For those who like their apocalyptic horror movies without the horror and gore.

I assumed being new adult that perhaps there would have been far more horror, but the opposite seemed to be the case. Apart from chasing the uninfected down and feeding, it was almost zombies, brought to you by Nickelodeon. The only character who's storyline had any direction, was Scarlet searching for her children. No one seemed to have any direction besides making it to the isolated farm. There was nothing particularly wrong with Red Hill, other than being boring. The storyline was slow and built to what seemed to be nothing in particular. I needed more, I wanted more... Sadly I just didn't get it.