Dread Nation ISBN: 9780062570604
Length: 11 hours and 56 mins
by Justina Ireland
Format: ebook
on April 3, 2018
Genres: Young Adult Fiction, Action & Adventure, Survival Stories, Historical, United States, Civil War Period (1850-1877), People & Places, African American
Pages: 464
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New York Times Bestseller!
At once provocative, terrifying, and darkly subversive, Dread Nation is Justina Ireland's stunning vision of an America both foreign and familiar—a country on the brink, at the explosive crossroads where race, humanity, and survival meet.
Jane McKeene was born two days before the dead began to walk the battlefields of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania—derailing the War Between the States and changing the nation forever.
In this new America, safety for all depends on the work of a few, and laws like the Native and Negro Education Act require certain children attend combat schools to learn to put down the dead.
But there are also opportunities—and Jane is studying to become an Attendant, trained in both weaponry and etiquette to protect the well-to-do. It's a chance for a better life for Negro girls like Jane. After all, not even being the daughter of a wealthy white Southern woman could save her from society’s expectations.
But that’s not a life Jane wants. Almost finished with her education at Miss Preston's School of Combat in Baltimore, Jane is set on returning to her Kentucky home and doesn’t pay much mind to the politics of the eastern cities, with their talk of returning America to the glory of its days before the dead rose.
But when families around Baltimore County begin to go missing, Jane is caught in the middle of a conspiracy, one that finds her in a desperate fight for her life against some powerful enemies.
And the restless dead, it would seem, are the least of her problems.
Please note that this book has deckle edges (the edges of the paper are purposely rough).
When I started seeing reviews of this on the bookish internet, I wondered why a book with zombies in them was released so far from Halloween. I was going to protest and save it to read/listen to Dread Nation in October, but I kept seeing allll the rave reviews, so I broke down and downloaded it on Scribd.
Y’all this book AND the narration blew my mind. I am from Kentucky, so I know what a Ky accent sounds like, and it was spot on for this book. This has got to be the best audiobook I have listened to this year. I can’t imagine an audiobook topping Dread Nation. It blew my mind so hard I am having a hard time forming the words of what to say.
. As for it being an “October” book I still feel that way kind of. It is not a scary book, but some scenes were hard and painful to listen to..
This book may have zombies all over it but it had some really heavy issues in the book. One example is slavery and how slaves were treated. I think my liberal brain rebelled at the idea that black people were only meant to protect white people from the undead. I kept telling myself that it was a made up story and that no one was gonna force anyone to fight the zombies that did not want to. THEN I told my self Zombies are not even real. I also get upset over how fictional people are treated imagine me where real live humans were mistreated.
The world building in the novel was fantastic. It seemed highly plausible that zombies could rise during the civil war and start attacking and eating people. I did not even have to suspend disbelief the world building was that good.
The plot moved fast and furious. I was getting tired of books that it takes 100 pages before you see any action so this was a welcome change. I know that slow-moving books have their place in literature but to many of them in a row makes me cranky. I like action in my books most of the time.
I feel that this book gave the author a chance to air out her feelings about the current administration. I am embarrassed by how long it took me to realize that the groups in the book were caricatures of groups in real life Trump administration. You have your religious fanatics, people who believe all should be armed with other such examples. Once I realized this though it made perfect sense and probably was cardiac for the author to write as well. When you think about it like that you can pretty much figure out how the author feels about various groups. I have to admit the way that this was written brilliantly. We often don’t stop to think about stuff such as this in fiction and especially not zombie fiction, but in this book, it was done so well it only added layers of complexity to the cast.
This was a brilliant book, and I bet it will be on a lot of people top ten list come December.
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