Rot & Ruin (Rot & Ruin, #1)

by Jonathan Maberry

[paperbackjedi]

Benny Imura and his brother don’t get along. He blames his brother Tom for the events of First Night when their parents died during the zombie uprising. Even though Tom’s supposedly a badass zombie hunter, Benny hasn’t seen any evidence of this and insists Tom’s a coward. Instead he hangs out with his friends a listens to tales from much cooler zombie hunters who help keep his small town safe. But when he starts asking questions about a young girl supposedly living in the wild, things go a little crazy. Now Benny and his brother are on a desperate mission to save their friends and they have no choice but to trust each other.

Guys, I love me a zombie book. Some of my favorite books ever are zombie books. There’s just something about the way they bring up questions about what makes someone human and what makes someone a monster that I find hugely compelling and this book was no different. It doesn’t help that it feels a lot like an episode of Supernatural either. Maberry creates a desolate wasteland in which America has succumbed to the zombie apocalypse and it’s such a haunting setting for the story and an apt metaphor for life. Survivors have created small towns to live in, away from the rest of the world which has been dubbed The Rot and Ruin. These settlement camps are actually tight knit communities of people trying to move on with their life, but having no idea how to do so. Most of the time, people live and die in these small spaces without ever trying to find something better out there and it’s heartbreaking, but also very real. Because who wants to tempt fate when a zombie horde could come along? People have a hard enough time breaking out of their comfort zones and trying to do something scary without a bunch of flesh eating monsters to worry about.

This book hits you heard with FAMILY FEELS. Tom Imura is one of the best characters I’ve come across in a while. He’s such an interesting mix of grace, honor, and obligation. He genuinely loves his little brother and wants to help build a world for him that will actually mean something in the end, that can offer him something more than just waiting to die. He serves as a great mentor and is a fully fleshed out almost main character. He’s the yin to Benny’s yang and it’s a truly wonderful and interesting dichotomy that’s explored between the brothers. Benny is a good protagonist in his own right and we spend most of the time in his head and you can actually feel and see him growing as a person as his journey into the zombie wasteland continues. He learns a lot about himself, his brother, and what it means to be a human being in a world of the dead. It brings up complex moral dilemmas in a very organic, beautiful way. There are times it does’t even feel like a young adult novel to me and instead reads like a haunting treatise on the human condition and the choices we make in order to live.

The pace is also pretty action packed and there were moments where I found myself holding my breath wondering what was going to happen next. The heart of this book, really, is the family aspect and the bond between brothers as they learn things about each other they didn’t know before. It’s of note that Benny and Tom don’t really know each other well at all in the beginning of this book even though they’re the only family they have left and they live in such a confined world and it really speaks to Maberry’s credit as a storyteller that their relationship progression was so rewarding and finely revealed. There is a bit of romance in the book as well, as Benny’s longtime friend Nix is a secondary character with a crush that becomes pretty complicated, but it’s by no means a focal point of the story. So if you like your YA novels with a little more emphasis on love of the romantic persuasion, you might be a bit disappointed. However, I’m sure this aspect is going to come into play in a much bigger way later in the series. All in all, I really enjoyed the book and have already Kindled the second installment.