Publication Details
Will be published 24th September 2013 by Harlequin TEEN
468 pages
29 chapters
(Please note that this book was sent to me for review by Bloomsbury, however, this does not in any way affect my final opinion or rating on the book. Everything mentioned in this review is completely of my own opinion.)
This book is the SEQUEL to Alice in Zombieland, however I will be making this review SPOILER FREE.
Synopsis
Inspired by the childhood classic Alice in Wonderland, this harrowing and romantic story features teen zombie slayer Alice Bell who has lost so much—family, friends, her home. After a strange new zombie attack, Alice fears she may be losing her mind as well. A terrible darkness blooms inside her, urging her to do wicked things. The whispers of the dead assault her ears and mirrors seem to come frighteningly to life. She’s never needed her team of zombie slayers more—including her boyfriend, Cole—than she does now. But as Cole strangely withdraws and the zombies gain new strength, Ali knows one false step may doom them all.
Review
Let's start off with the fact that this book is the sequel to one of my favourite books of 2012 - Alice in Zombieland. I absolutely loved Alice in Zombieland and so I naturally was very anxiously awaiting the opportunity to read its sequel Through the Zombie Glass and this book was more than worth it!
This series follows Alice Bell, who's in her late teens and has a somewhat strong connection to zombies. Since this is the sequel and I don't want to give away too much, that's all I'm going to say about the series as a whole so far. Now back to Through the Zombie Glass.
The plot of this book is one of the most clever and thought out plots that I've ever read. This book is one of those sequels that you expect to be good but not as good as the first in the series, but then it turns out to be 10 times better. The start of the book is basically continuing from Alice in Zombieland and we continue following Alice around in her weird daily life. But then the main plot hits and I seriously never thought that this would have been something that would happen to Alice. Obviously as this is the sequel and I don't want to reveal anything major I won't say what the actual main plot is but trust me when I say it's amazing. It's creepy, it's weird and it's just all round phenomenal.
Gena Showalter is an amazing author. Her writing is so easy to read and everything she writes is detailed in a very simplistic but entirely understandable way that makes for easy reading. Gena also manages to create some very creepy scenes in this series, especially in Through the Zombie Glass. Although Gena is amazing at writing creepy and dark scenes, her humor shines through so perfectly in her books - Kat (mentioned below) is one of those few characters that I can read and almost all of her scenes make me laugh out loud, and for that, I am entirely grateful. Any time an author makes me laugh out loud, that's how I know they're a good author. Gena is not good, she's mind-blowingly phenomenal. If you haven't read any of Gena's work, you're missing out on so much and when you read her work, you'll be so angry that you were previously so oblivious to her writing. Trust me, read some Gena Showalter, you will not regret it.
Alice Bell is one of my favourite main characters, I just love her personality and how she can be so protective of her friends and family and when she's at her weakest she'll be the strongest she can be to protect the people she cares about. That's the kind of character that I love. I feel like even though Alice has been through some of the most horrific things that could happen to someone so young she manages to stay strong and even though everything keeps hitting her like a bullet through the chest she manages to take it all in her stride and find a way to remedy absolutely anything that comes her way from her friends' broken relationships to zombie-infested buildings. Alice is amazing, Alice is badass, Alice is just wow.
The only other character that I feel really stands out enough for me to mention in this review is Katherine "Kat" Parker - Alice's best friend. I can't describe with words how much I love Kat as a character. If someone offered me the opportunity to put all things I love in a person and mould them together to create a friend for myself, Kat would probably be the outcome. Kat is loveable, she's kinda weird and best of all she's hilarious. She just doesn't seem to care about much in life and she takes each day as it comes and she doesn't worry or stress about the implications of her actions or what the future will bring - she lives in the here and now and I love her for everything she is.
Although I could talk about this book for hours on end without running out of things to talk about, I can't continue this review without spoilers so I'll have to stop here. I just love this book so much, I love this series so much, these characters and the weird world they live in, it's all amazing. One more thing I would like to mention before I end this review is to those people who haven't yet read Alice in Zombieland - please don't go into this book expecting it to be an exact zombie-infested retelling of Alice in Wonderland because that's not what this series is. This series wouldn't be as incredible as it is if it was just an exact replica of Alice in Wonderland with a few zombies here and there, it's much, much better than that and deserves a whole lot more praise than it's already getting. So please, if you haven't yet read Alice in Zombieland and plan to, go into the book with a fresh mind, don't expect Alice to fall down a hole, don't expect a weird tea party or a mad Queen. Expect an Alice you've never known, a badass Alice that slays zombies on an almost-daily basis.
This series has been fantastic so far, Gena's mind-blowing writing, the fantastic characters and incredible plots all make for a mind-blowing series about the Alice you thought you knew and one you'll never forget.
5 out of 5 stars
*Side note: READ THIS SERIES* That is all.
