"Road Trip of the Living Dead" was a satisfactory sophomore book. At times it was rather obvious that Amanda was being written by a man, but it wasn't as bad as my attempts at writing as a man. However, I did have two major issues with the book.

First, it began suffering from too many supporting characters, from the hot werewolf, to the ghost haunting the car, to the ghost's sister, to the drugged-out bum, and then add in the original 3 main characters, it became quite a handful.

Finally, I also didn't really care for the ending involving Amanda's mom. She's now immortal? She's going to be making Amanda's undead life a living Hell just like she made her actual life? Bonding with Gil? I found her an annoying character, one that was better off D-E-A-D! Otherwise, I did enjoy the book and will probably pick-up the third one in the series from the library. ( )

"Road Trip of the Living Dead" was a satisfactory sophomore book. At times it was rather obvious that Amanda was being written by a man, but it wasn't as bad as my attempts at writing as a man. However, I did have two major issues with the book.

First, it began suffering from too many supporting characters, from the hot werewolf, to the ghost haunting the car, to the ghost's sister, to the drugged-out bum, and then add in the original 3 main characters, it became quite a handful.

Finally, I also didn't really care for the ending involving Amanda's mom. She's now immortal? She's going to be making Amanda's undead life a living Hell just like she made her actual life? Bonding with Gil? I found her an annoying character, one that was better off D-E-A-D! Otherwise, I did enjoy the book and will probably pick-up the third one in the series from the library. ( )

Reviewed by Jen
Book provided by the author for review
Review originally posted at Romancing the Book

Amanda Feral, our zombie heroine, is going on a road trip from Seattle to South Dakota to have closure with her mother who is dying. But she and her friends (including another zombie, a vampire and ghost) end up on the run from an angry vampire and his werewolf goons, picking up a couple humans and encountering a plethora of paranormal beings.

I was excited to have the opportunity to get an advance copy of this book when Mark and I were setting up his promo on the blog. Urban Fantasy is right up the alley of books I enjoy reading. But unfortunately I had trouble getting through the book, only finishing it last night.

Don’t get me wrong, the book wasn’t bad… in fact, I found the premise intriguing. Just something about it didn’t agree with me. Part of it could be the language and a lot of it was the gore. And I found the footnotes (yes, footnotes in fiction) to be overused and often distracting. But I think the turn off for me was Amanda. I have to like the main characters in the book to enjoy it and more often than not I couldn’t like Amanda. I didn’t enjoy her sense of humor and snarkiness. And that made for a rough read.

This is the second book of Amanda’s memoirs, following Happy Hour of the Damned. I admit that I felt like I was always a step behind because I haven’t read the first book in the series… and recommend that if you’re going to try these books, going in order is probably the way to go. ( )

Amanda Feral, well, really what can I say - shes as snarky in this book as she was in the first one if not more! This book she's going to visit her mother, who she really doesn't care for - because she's on her death bed. But after being assaulted verbally by her main friends, she says ok what the hell. Now her best friend Gill is on the run because of some garbage that happened with his recently new business of luxury resurrection. So really, he's on the run and looking forward to getting away before his customer comes after him.

WE really meet some interesting folks in this book! Let's see they meet Fishhook, and her little ghostie friends sister, a few disasters along the way, such as werewolves coming after them, shopping at Kmart, girls with guns! We actually manage to learn a lot of Ms. Feral, and by that I mean about how she was raised while with her mother and we learn why she dislikes the woman sooooo much! And of course, there are some mysterious things happening and it kind of turns into a who-dun-it mystery which just adds to the fun of the book! ( )

We are six months after the end of Happy Hour of the Damned, and everyone has pretty much moved on since the zombie outbreaks. Gil has started his own Resurrection business, making money turning people undead. While waiting for a client of Gills, recently deceased wealthy-rich man, to rise from the grave Amanda mentions to Wendy and Gil she received a call from her mothers hospice care nurse saying her mother is in ending stages of stomach cancer. With the rising of the new vampire things start to go seriously wrong. A ghost who hates vampires does something to the newly birthing vampire as he is breaking from the earth. Markham is now pissed (ha ha...) and wants a refund and threatens to kill Gil. But Gil hopes a few days away will calm him to the point of talking and not killing. Leaving town for a road trip to Amanda's mom's, the crew goes ~ some wanting and willing, and one dreading it.

Oh this road trip is a tragic comedy of events. But we are with a group of meat eating undead here and there are crazy happenings with the crew as they are chased through the country to Amanda's dieing moms. Fun. As the trip starts off as a way to get away from troubles awaiting in town, the start to think they might be being followed. But then when they think they've lost their stalkers other events take place and we meet new characters that being a new twist to the story and new destination stops in the road trip. All stops end in a wild happening. And the humor like in Happy Hour.

We learn more of Amanda's upbringing through her memories of her mom while meeting new characters that fit, and don't fit, into the group. There are new men and women. And each finds their own place here, if they have one. Amanda is the great sassy character I remembered her to be. Wendy seemed to be not as active for me in this book. But we do meet some new characters which I enjoyed, Honey and Scott. I love the connections the feel with a few of the characters. Nice! But, there's a murder mystery too! Not knowing who is doing the murders and working on the suspects. So, who is killing these people? Which ones will end up lunch meat? You'll have to read to find out. ( )