Audio Review: Trudge Surviving the Zombie Apocalypse, Book 1

Cade Grayson finds himself separated from his wife and daughter during a viral outbreak; between them are 3000 miles and millions of infected. Cade must form alliances and rely on his military training to run the gauntlet of undead, as well as the living. He must leave Portland, Oregon to locate his family in South Carolina. Fifteen months after an honorable discharge the disillusioned former Tier-One operator travels east with his less than clean-cut neighbor and two neighbor kids. Meanwhile, his wife Brook is forced to flee the familial home with daughter Raven in tow. Humans bent on taking advantage of other humans are as much a threat as the newly risen walking corpses. Incommunicado and desperate for any information about the outbreak's spread, Cade must chart the right course on his trudge to reunite with his family. Edited by Monique Happy Monique Happy Editorial Services Praise for Trudge "Unlike other authors, even some of the big names, Chesser understands female character as well as male. This is such an important thing in a book with strong characters that are of both sex. Believe me when I say, his writing is top notch." By Terra King examiner.com March 15, 2012

Anyone who knows me will know that I am equally enthralled and terrified of walking dead people. I may not be the head of all Zombie result, but I know pretty much what to expect as one story bleeds into another til the at all the same. I like to say if you can’t think of anything except that they eat brains then maybe you should find another monster to annoy you. It seems like people have run out of ideas regarding zombies and people start to regurgitate the same tired old story. BUT… I am glutton for punishment, AND it was free with Kindle Unlimted, so I was like why not?

I was pleasantly surprised that the zombies in  Trudge were NOT like all of the others. Somehow the author Shawn Chesser managed to come up with a mostly original storyline. Ok so it may not have been ALLL original, but at least Shawn Chesser did not “borrow” another person Zombie or another’s person concept of  a zombie

I have to admit that I had no idea this was the first in around 16 books in a  series. When I learned this the first this that came out of my mouth was, Well, damn now we all know why not everyone laid down and died. If Shawn Chesser did kill everyone off then well he wouldn’t have enough people still living, and that would have been the end of that. No more 15 books after the first one and as I genuinely enjoyed the first book I made happy that there are more to read. To be honest was hoping for maybe one more book or two to go with the first one but when I went to FicFact there were a total of 16 books! So yay!!

This book tells the reader about patient zero and how things escalated quickly, and it seemed every other breath someone was trying to avoid getting bit by a zombie. In this version of the end of days supposedly mutated into the zombie virus. I couldn’t help but think that that must be one hell of a flu virus. I mean the patient gets a high fever and all of that, and 48 hours later he is but one out of thousands that reanimated. Damn.

I had more questions than answers at the end of this book. Like I said before, I was unaware that this was only the first out of many books that make up this series. 

One thing though, the whole time I was listening to the audiobook, I could tell that the author was TELLING and not showing and I could hear my English professor in college telling SHOW NOT TELL!!!  What is the matter with you?!? And people thought I never paid attention to the professors. Heh, That was the one big thing for me about this book is the author seemed hell-bent on telling everything his people in the story did. In the end, this was an excellent way to escape from reality for a few hours.