Ed's Mini Book Review - Monster Island

Image via WikipediaMonster Island is the second book I've read from David Wellington, the first being 13 Bullets. This one had me back in to the zombie book realm which has been a while for me. Basic premise is that of a lot of zombie books, outbreak has ravaged the world and zombies have taken over most places. The first twist we get here to the basic zombie paradigm is that we have our group of heroes purposefully journey to an area that they know is overrun in order to procure some medical supples. That place that is overrun is none other than Manhattan.

This piqued my interest right away because many zombie books don't deal with the big city. They instead focus on the person living in a small town or in the sticks so to speak because that's easy. It's easy to have a survivor from a place where there aren't that many people around to turn into zombies or an area where getting to an isolated or relatively safe location is feasible. This book, sadly, skips that but we do get Manhattan after the outbreak and see what's left.

The next major twist in the rote zombie paradigm is with the character of Gary and how he progresses/comes to understand what happened to make the dead rise. Gary is a med student who throws his lot in with the superior numbers, the zombies. Wait, what? How does he do that, you say? That I will leave alone in case you decide to read the book, but in any event this goes along to explain what is happening. For my tastes, while appreciate it being a little different from the typical zombie fare, I wasn't a big fan of the revelation. Reminded me a bit of The Rising by Brian Keene, but it's not exactly like that explanation, and if you've followed my reviews, you know I wasn't a fan of that book.

To sum this bad boy up, Monster Island is an overall solid addition to the zombie genre. A little less of a survival horror book and a bit more into the 'whys' of what has caused the outbreak, though I am not sure the reasons given by certain dubious characters are the correct ones. Certainly entertaining but nothing groundbreaking. Enough to get me to read the next book in the trilogy, Monster Nation.

My Grade: B-

LL