A review by bklassen
Dread Nation by Justina Ireland

adventurous dark lighthearted mysterious tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.0

This was just a lot of fun to read. Black girls in a post antebellum (or maybe antebellum, as the Civil War was put on hold due to the zombie infestation) killing zombies? Hell yeah. I’m a sucker for historical things, and ones with a twist like this can be a blast if done correctly. 

I loved seeing this alternate past, especially one in which an author has put a great deal of research and thought into world building. The two main characters, Jane and Katherine, are fantastic. Jane is much more impulsive, almost arrogant, and definitely a competent fighter. Katherine is more into fashion, society rules, being proper, and is certainly more rigid than Jane. This leads to a great dynamic between the two girls, almost like the fairly odd couple, that involves plenty of friction and banter. You don’t need to worry about a love triangle, either, because

Katherine is asexual, which is some nice representation! And Jane is bisexual! Absolutely fantastic.

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It does take a bit of suspension of disbelief with the concept of a teenager being so much more competent than a group of adults, but hey, it’s YA. And it’s fantasy because zombies don’t exist, so all good. Oh, and I suppose I also sort of rolled my eyes at every crush or description of attractive men in the book because Jane is a bit boy crazy, but thankfully there was no romance in this book. I am so primed to think that in YA any description of an attractive male means the main plot becomes sideline for a half assed romance story, but I should have given the author more credit. She wrote from Jane’s perspective, who notices attractive men, but didn’t lose sight of the important plot. 

It was a fast read full of fun and zombie slaying set in a Civil War period and I loved how Ireland (the author, not the country) interprets what racism would have looked like not only back then, but also during an apocalyptic time.