Joan Frances Turner

I have a love/hate relationship with zombies. I'm scared to death (haha) of them, but I find them fascinating as well. So when I picked up this book and started reading, I quickly found myself unable to read it at night. And then I realized I also couldn't put it down.

Joan Frances Turner writes zombies like someone who's also fascinated by them, and wants to understand what makes them who (what?) they are. Jessie is a great protagonist, a zombie who likes her undead life, but who also longs for the family she left behind.

Having said all that, I did have some problems with the book. Chief among them is the fact that it was so darn slow. It's extremely repetitive at times, and there are entire chapters when not much happens. For a zombie novel, it's not an action caper, but more of a slow character study - almost literary at times. I also didn't understand why the author had to conjure up Death as a real character toward the end of the book. That seemed to come out of nowhere and made no sense to me.

Overall, though, I enjoyed the book, and I would read the sequel.… (meer)

Man, I really liked this book! If you like zombies, but you want more than just a bunch of mindless, animate objects staggering around on a hunt for brains, then this is the book for you. Turner has concocted a zombie tale for the intelligent reader. Her zombies are pretty close to human, except they eat raw flesh...animal and human. The zombies (although they do not like to be called that) have formed gangs and they live like families--hunting, fighting, and dancing together. But, like any family, when one person starts veering from the group and their behavior changes toward the group, the family unit starts to crumble. I can't really say too much because I really don't want to give away the story. It needs to be discovered and savored, as a zombie would savor the liver of a fresh kill.

Not only do we get a dynamic zombie tale here, but the author takes it a step further and asks us. What could be worse than zombies? And then she proceeds to masterfully invent that next horror for us. Dust is not only a zombie horror story, but is also a dystopian, post-apocalyptic tale of caution. When I think of the possibility of being the last humans (or what resembles human?) on earth, I certainly never envisioned this type of scenario. If you haven't read this book, I have to strongly recommend that you do so soon.… (meer)