Review - Dust & Decay by Jonathan Maberry

Six months have passed since the terrifying battle with Charlie Pink-eye and the Motor City Hammer in the zombie-infested mountains of the Rot & Ruin. It’s also six months since Benny Imura and Nix Riley saw something in the air that changed their lives. Now, after months of rigorous training with Benny’s zombie-hunter brother Tom, Benny and Nix are ready to leave their home forever and search for a better future. Lilah the Lost Girl and Benny’s best friend Lou Chong are going with them. Sounds easy. Sounds wonderful. Except that everything that can go wrong does. Before they can even leave there is a shocking zombie attack in town. But as soon as they step into the Rot & Ruin they are pursued by the living dead, wild animals, insane murderers and the horrors of Gameland –where teenagers are forced to fight for their lives in the zombie pits. Worst of all…could the evil Charlie Pink-eye still be alive?

In the great Rot & Ruin everything wants to kill you. Everything…and not everyone in Benny’s small band of travelers will make it out alive.

Dust & Decay by Jonathan Maberry is probably one of the most action packed and thrilling books I've read ever. I know I say this a lot, but I would LOVE to see it as a movie. Even knowing what's supposed to happen I would probably be close to falling off the edge of my seat for the ENTIRE movie.

Benny and Co. have been training for months with Tom. Training to become "Warrior Smart" as they call it. To learn how to fight and how to survive. Because soon Tom, Nix, Benny, and Lilah are going to be leaving Mountainside in search of the jet they'd seen pass overhead months and months ago. Even Chong is going to accompany them for part of the way. Until everything goes wrong. Everyone gets separated from everyone else and it would take a miracle for them all to end up back together in one piece.

There were some new characters introduced in this installment of the Benny Imura series. We meet Preacher Jack who seems a little creepy and too much like he's hiding something, Sally Two-Knives who is a fearsome bounty hunter who lost both of her children on first knight, and J-Dog and Dr. Skillz who try to keep the beach in their bounty hunting. We also stumble briefly across the Greenman who some believe is just a figment of their imagination.

I loved the new bounty hunters. The ones that were friends with Tom. Fiercely loyal to him the play an integral role in the quest to bring down an empire that has taken over the Ruin for far too long. Tom is still, by far, my favorite character. I hated Preacher Jack. Hated him. Him and White Bear and everyone associated with him. Horrible people, all of them. Proof that the most terrifying thing after a zombie apocalypse may not, in fact, be the zombies.

In all honesty, I almost could not force myself to put the book down. If I could have read it in my sleep with my eyes closed I would have. And I can count on one hand the number of books that have made me cry. This is one of them. And I don't just mean little tears here and there. I had to put the book down and take my glasses off for a minute before I could continue reading. And I cheated and read the description of the next book so I even KNEW what was going to happen. I still bawled like a baby. I'm not ashamed to admit it.

If you have read Rot & Ruin you HAVE to read Dust & Decay. If you haven't read book one, do it and then read book two. This is an absolute must read recommendation to EVERYONE.