It's Zombiefest July! I've been reading zombie books with my MacHalo sisters and felt I needed something a little more, so decided to read this one on my own, in-between other reads.It's the end of the world as we know it. Civilization has long been decimated and no one knows about things like skyscrapers or oceans anymore. All that is known is the forest. The forest is where the "Unconsecrated" are. They have pretty much taken over the world and people have been forced to build huge fences and whatever other types of fortresses they can come up with to keep the "Unconsecrated" out. Mary's village reminded me of the M. Night Shyamalan movie The Village.The Sisterhood is sort of like the law and also provide spiritual comfort and guidance. But they're secretive and a little, well, some of them are just plain old bitches. Mary is one young girl who lives in one of these villages, surrounded by a fence the Guardians must patrol and maintain. Her best friend, Cass and two boys they grew up with, Harry and Travis are about to get married. Only the boy Mary wants is pledged to someone else. And their lives are about to get ALL fracked up.I won't go into the story anymore, but WOW! I loved this. My feels got all crazy and I even CRIED!What a GREAT zombie book. At first, I felt like Mary was really meh and then she turns out to have some smarts and spunk in her. At times, it was a bit annoying to be in her head because she obsesses about one particular boy and her dreams of finding the ocean. I'm deducting one star because I did have to skim a few paragraphs were she kept going on and on about her romantic life. She gets all like this about the guy she wants:But thankfully, those sections didn't go on endlessly. This is more of a plot driven story than character driven, so the characters weren't fleshed out all that great, but it works for a book like this. I thought it was an excellent, creepy, dystopian zombie book. I tore through this and it was a page-turner. I am so going to read the rest of the series!

Dear Mary,You went full Shane. You never go full Shane.Hugs and kisses, Kikixoxo

I was really excited to read this book when it first came out. But being short on money (like always), I had to wait an entire year for it to come out in paperback. You should have seen my face when I spotted it's cover at Borders. It immediately went to the enormous pile I was lugging around (sadly, I had to put half the books back, because it would be called stealing otherwise). This book is told from the perspective of Mary, a young woman growing up in a small, isolated village surrounded by a fence that keeps the unrelenting zombies out. But they are not called zombies in this book (in fact the word zombie never mentioned), but rather the Unconsecrated. Trust me, they are true zombies. They eat flesh and babies and everything. Anyway, Mary grows up believing that her village, run by the dubious Sisterhood that claims that their little pocket of humanity amidst the formidible forest is the last of mankind. Mary, of course, questions this and is not content with her future as a member of the Sisterhood or married to man she doesn't love. Instead, she dreams of the ocean and the other stories her mother used to tell her of generations long gone. From the first chapter, Mary's life is turned upside down. Her father walks among the dead, and her mother goes to join him. She is turned away by her brother and is sent to live in the Cathedral with the Sisterhood, which has well-kept secrets in every room. This book is very well-written. Fluid and suspenseful, I had a hard time putting it down. While it did have some zombie-slaying action, it wasn't the focus of the book. Instead what kept me going was the sense of mystery and doom. Nothing good ever happens to Mary and the questions just kept coming with little-to-none answers. Mary was an unreliable narrator and a little crazy. All what the reader sees is first filtered through her eyes. She selfishly clung on to her dream of the ocean and refused to settle for anything less, even when it cost her the people she cared about. But hey, she is still one of the few chracters alive at the end, and the only one with a chance at a life, so she must have been doing something right. The rest of the characters wouldv'e gotten eaten long ago if Mary wasn't there to drive them.This book is severely creepy, what with zombies relentlessly moaning in the background. I got skeeved out in a couple scenes (zombie baby). Like I said earlier, nothing good really happens at all. This book isn't for the faint at heart as it can be somewhat depressing. But I still found it intelligent and refreshing. It's so nice to read a young adult novel without a saintly narrator and a perfectly happy ending.My least favorite part of it though was the love triangle? rectangle? I don't know what to call it. But the gist of it is Mary is in love with Travis. Travis is in love with Mary, but is engaged to Mary's best friend, Cass. Cass is in love with Harry, but Harry is engaged to Mary. Harry likes Mary, but I wouldn't call it love. I think he just wants a wife. Oh, and Travis and Harry are brothers. It's just a mess of duty and love. No one wants to marry who they are supposed to, but feel like they have a duty to do so. So, its complicated without ever being really interesting. I never really saw what was so great about Travis. Mary nursed him and her previous crush on him turned into full out love (or so she says). This might sound weird, but I could never tell when they were kissing or not. The scenes between them were written oddly, and I kept thinking they were kissing, but later on in the page I was proved wrong. Their lips were just really close together and they were almost kissing. My bad.Anyway, despite some personal preferences and little annoyances, this book was really good. Not for everyone, but I recommend everyone try it. I'm sooo looking forward to The Dead-Tossed Waves, where some questions might finally be answered.