Book Review: Rot & Ruin by Jonathan Maberry

I absolutely love reading Jonathan Maberry, but I kind of have a beef with him right now. The guy writes so damn fast that I can't keep up with his releases! It's been a while since I finished his excellent Pine Deep Trilogy and his first Joe Ledger book, Patient Zero, but since then, he's put out two more Joe Ledger books with a third one dropping any time now, Rot & Ruin AND its sequel, Dust & Decay AND a stand alone zombie novel, Dead of Night! The guy's fingers must be smoking! But, how can I complain? Once you've read Maberry, you just can't get enough!

Anyway, on to the review. I finally got a chance to read Rot & Ruin and I've got to tell you - in a genre that has been blasted with every kind of zombie story there is, Maberry has written what I might consider to be the best one yet and the funny thing is, it's a YA title. But, just because Rot & Ruin is a YA title, don't let that dispel you from reading it. This is hands-down one of the most realistic takes on how the world carries on after the zombie apocalypse. Maberry doesn't dumb things down for the teen audience and his world is dreary, gritty and filled with challenges both physical and emotional.

Rot & Ruin follows Benny Imura, who was just an infant when the zombie apocalypse occurred. Now a teen, Benny must find a job or else his food rations will be reduced. After trying and failing at several, he decides he wants to become a zombie killer like his older brother Tom. What Benny doesn't understand is that killing zombies isn't all its cracked up to be and his brother Tom isn't exactly the person Benny thought he was and that sometimes, the living can be more dangerous than the walking dead.

Rot & Ruin has been the recipient of too many awards to list here, but I can tell you this - it deserves every one of them. This is a beautifully told story that just leaps off the page. The characters and the environment feel real and the emotional aspect of life after the zombie apocalypse is equally as intense. I absolutely loved this book and look forward to discovering what happens next in Dust & Decay and thanks to Jonathan's smoking fingers, I can jump right in. Rot & Ruin gets ***** out of *****.

Order Rot & Ruin for your Kindle today. You won't be disappointed!