Claude's Bookzone's Reviews > The Reapers are the Angels

I am currently on my 'Zombie-a-thon' so will do the reviews for previously read zombie books too.

Well this is absolutely amazing and one of my favourite books ever! The fact that it has zombies in it is just a bonus. Temple is one of the most raw, honest , and insightful characters I have ever come across in a YA novel. I felt so much emotion reading about this brave girl and her simple views on living in this ruined world.

“Truth be told, the inward gaze is something she's not too fond of. But there are secrets that lurk in the mind, and she doesn't want any of them sneaking up on her. Sometimes it pays to take a deep look inside even if you get queasy gazing into those dark corners.”

The writing is so beautiful which creates a wonderful juxtaposition to the horrors Temple faces in this ugly and infected land.

“...and she's thinking of rage, like an ember or a burning acid swallowing up her knotted viscera. Blindness like the kind that leads men to perpetrate horrors, animal drunkenness, the jungles of the mind."

“It has become something to her, that memory—something she can take out in dismal times and stare into like a crystal ball disclosing not presages but reminders. She holds it in her palm like a captured ladybug and thinks, Well ain’t I been some places, ain’t I partook in some glorious happenings wanderin my way between heaven and earth. And if I ain’t seen everything there is to see, it wasn’t for lack of lookin. Blind is the real dead.”

"Blind is the real dead". Honestly people, the book has so many wonderful observations like that.

It was this book that started me on my "Zombies are metaphors" crusade. Because they are guys! They totally are! Zombie stories are often an analysis of the human condition, whether it be in relation to the origins of the zombies (a result of apathy, greed, military arrogance etc) or in the way humans respond in times of crisis (self-preservation, survival of the fittest, communities coming together etc).

Anyway, this book won't be for everyone because at the end of the day it is simply about a girl making her way across a devastated country and encountering different types of people on her journey.

I loved it.