Good Reads summary
The sequel to Dread Nation is a journey of revenge and salvation across a divided America.
After the fall of Summerland, Jane McKeene hoped her life would get simpler: Get out of town, stay alive, and head west to California to find her mother.
But nothing is easy when you’re a girl trained in putting down the restless dead, and a devastating loss on the road to a protected village called Nicodermus has Jane questioning everything she thought she knew about surviving in 1880’s America.
What’s more, this safe haven is not what it appears – as Jane discovers when she sees familiar faces from Summerland amid this new society. Caught between mysteries and lies, the undead, and her own inner demons, Jane soon finds herself on a dark path of blood and violence that threatens to consume her.
But she won’t be in it alone.
Katherine Deveraux never expected to be allied with Jane McKeene. But after the hell she has endured, she knows friends are hard to come by – and that Jane needs her, too, whether Jane wants to admit it or not.
Watching Jane’s back, however, is more than she bargained for, and when they both reach a breaking point, it’s up to Katherine to keep hope alive – even as she begins to fear that there is no happily-ever-after for girls like her.
My Thoughts (little spoiler)
I am starting to wonder if I am the type of person who likes stand-alone books as opposed to series. Now before you get the wrong impression, I want to say that I really enjoyed this book. But I think that I love the newness and world-building in the first book in series and then I put my expectations too high for the next books. I like the idea of catching up with characters in books that are a part of a series. I needed to know what badass Jane was up to since our last encounter!
This book delved in a bit deeper into the characters. I liked watching Jane’s evolution in book 2 as she is forced to wrestle with so many serious issues. I also liked the continued friendship between Jane and Katherine in this book. I think that it was so important to the story to keep their friendship going despite the trauma they face. There were some new characters as well and they helped to add to the story.
I also, like the author’s small dip into the relations between blacks and Natives in the story. It is was great to see how she incorporated a bit of that history. I also felt the hair on my neck stand up as the book touched on medical experiments (via Giddeon) on minorities and the poor. This is something I feel I want to learn more about in real life so that I can be a part of the catalyst to prevent present-day abuses. There is a book called Medical Apartheid by Harriet A. Washington that I have had my eye on for some time now. That might be my entryway into that topic.
The few things that make me walk away not 100 percent satisfied is one, that the story had a little bit of a slow down in the middle. Two, I’m not sure I am buying Gideon’s oversight with his vaccination he is developing. If he is smart enough to develop a vaccination then he should not overlook simple testing observations. I understand she was trying to wrap up but it just didn’t feel right. Other than that I really enjoyed the book.
