Even White Trash Zombies Get the Blues

I barely ever read books of a series right after each other. Somehow I feel my motivation to read stays alive more when I switch things up. Doubly so when it's about thick volumes. In this case the individual books being so short did help me go. So there is that.

Angel keeps going on with her un-life as normal. As normal as being a zombie working for a coroner, who recently almost got murdered with her also zombie boyfriend by his zombie hunter best friend could be, really. Up until a guy with a gun steals a corpse from her at work. Of course she gets accused of being complicit or some such, but then things get weirder and it seems like there are more people being into the zombie business and taking it much, much more seriously than anyone would have guessed.

I assumed zombies were simply smarter and working by a different mechanic here, but never really guessed how much of a pseudo-mafia thing could possibly go on behind it all. It makes a ridiculous amount of sense though, eating brains works like an actual life and death addiction situation and there is no way to just get handed human brains legally for whatever purposes you need without some serious questions being asked. It really made me think about how organised life is. How (while yes, negligence and accidents happen, but) everything we do is documented and it all goes though a certain amounts of regulated hands to make even the death business work. Which is especially funny as a cousin of mine only recently quit being a prosector after something like two decades.
It all just hit that sweet spot of zombies being interesting and viable. I mean really, it's so much like human nature to form groups, get some hierarchy running and trying to make on a way to have a more comfortable and hassle-free way of dealing with the uncomfortable things you have to do. If you think about it, this is why we invented cars, plumbing, electricity, everything. So of course zombies able to think would do the same.

Here there is also some more personal drama, again, the right amount. Angel has things she needs to deal with and being a zombie didn't make them not important anymore. Just because she is something different from a normal human being doesn't make the difficult human relationships go away and I think that's part of this books's good parts. She isn't a victim, though. The book actually acknowledges that while things were and are stacked against her, she is not a helpless person who is not responsible with ruining many things for herself and in a way that also tell you that she also has the power to fix things. They don't happen overnight, but what's going on still has a chance for us to influence it for the better or worse.
From my experience this is something what a lot of modern “strong female characters” lack; a clear connection between what happened to them, their own responsibility of doing things, their issues and the solutions. Somehow the personal responsibility is always cut out and it's always someone else's horribleness or mistakes that ruins them, which they just have to fix without even acknowledging that they themselves could do something wrong. THIS difference is why Angel is a great character. (She also has meaningful relationships with men without trying to one up them. Which is increasingly rare and I love it. My worth as a woman doesn't come from the number of men I can humiliate and be a bitch to in a petty way, my own achievements are the reward.)

What I really appreciate about this is how it manages to deliver some positive thoughts without being in your face preachy and trying to be too deep and dramatic. It's still fun and full of action. Still has humour and good moments. It doesn't take itself too seriously to just fall flat and become a comical piece of... something unidentifiable with way too much pathos. This is something we should treasure; when a story delivers something worthwhile for different people looking for different depth. I doesn't need to be mindless and it doesn't need to be forced faux intellectual. Let the story speak for itself.

Oh, also it's fun that the story has some elements with investigation techniques explained. There is a part when they go and take fingerprints from an object found at a crime scene and maybe I'm just a noob, but I had no idea how that was done. As a fan of random information bits and pieces, this was awesome. Guess why I am so good at trivia games which I watch on TV avidly. I get so pissed when people claim reading fiction is useless because it gives you no factual knowledge. Eat your heart out, I learn new stuff every day from books with white trash zombies.

I'm obviously going to read the next book. At this point there is no way for me to not do it, so there is that. It's genuinely much better than it has the right to be.

Have a nice day and use your brains, one way or another!