Rot & Ruin is an alright book. Some of the story is interesting, and somewhat unique for a zombie novel. The characters, except for Tom, didn't grab me though, so it was hard to care about what was happening to them. The writing was strange, too. Most of it seemed more like Juvenile Fiction than Young Adult.

I'll probably read the next book in the series sometime, just to see where the story goes. ( )

Boy, there's a load of excellent dystopian YA fiction out there. Thanks to my teenager for putting me on to this. ( )

I really enjoyed this book. Lots o action and gore. Characters I liked and an interesting take on the zombie Mythos wrapped up in a tidy YA package. ( )

When is Dust & Decay coming out?! I flew through this book, and can't wait for more! ( )

I might not have given this a chance after the first few chapters, but I was reading it for a book club so was determined to power through or die. The main character is so unlikeable at the beginning, that the book is initially hard to choke down. I'm glad I was obliged to stick with it, because Benny improved, and the story got interesting.

I like much of what Maberry imagined for his zombie apocalypse-there are certainly ideas I haven't seen before. Some are pretty neat, like the carpet coats and the erosion portraits. Others seemed a bit silly, like the cult-like fear of electricity among some of the townspeople.

The author had an interesting approach to zombies-much more empathy than expected, although at times I felt like I was being hammered with that theme.

The drawn-out expository conversations between Benny and his brother Tom worked to some extent because Tom is becoming a mentor to Benny, but it sometimes made the dialogue awkward. By the end, I was enjoying their relationship and glad Tom wasn't really dead.

It wasn't perfect, and I don't feel the overwhelming desire to gush about it, but I enjoyed it well enough, developed an attachment to the characters and will probably pick up the next one before too long. ( )