Early Review: Dust by Joan Frances Turner

*This title will be released on September 7, 2010*

Description:

Nine years ago, Jessie had a family.
Now, she has a gang.
Nine years ago, Jessie was a vegetarian.
Now, she eats very fresh meat.
Nine years ago,
Jessie was in a car crash and died.
Nine years ago, Jessie was human.
Now, she’s not.

After she was buried, Jessie awoke and tore through the earth to arise, reborn, as a zombie. Jessie’s gang is the Fly-by-Nights. She loves the ancient, skeletal Florian and his memories of time gone by. She’s in love with Joe, a maggot-infested corpse. They fight, hunt, dance together as one—something humans can never understand. There are dark places humans have learned to avoid, lest they run into the zombie gangs.

But now, Jessie and the Fly-by-Nights have seen new creatures in the woods—things not human and not zombie. A strange new illness has flamed up out of nowhere, causing the undeads to become more alive and the living to exist on the brink of death. As bits and pieces of the truth fall around Jessie, like the flesh off her bones, she’ll have to choose between looking away or staring down the madness—and hanging onto everything she has come to know as life…

 Review

Book 1 in The Dust Series

I don’t know that I’ve ever had a book make me feel as physically nauseous as I did while reading DUST.  It is grotesque, gruesome, and gory from start to finish.

I’m kind of marveling at the 180 that I’ve gone through with DUST.  I liked the concept of a zombie novel written from the perspective of the undead, I loved the book trailers that spoofed the old Public Service Announcements, and I still think the first line is one of the best ever: “My right arm fell off today. Lucky for me, I’m left-handed.” But I discovered before even finishing the first chapter is that there maybe a very good reason why zombies don’t always get the starring role.

DUST is intelligently written, the character of Jessie (pardon the pun) fully fleshed out, and the zombie sub culture unsettling in its realism.  But, and this is a big but, the actually storyline staggers along like a rotting corpse ultimately decaying into a bizarre and confusing ending that was trying to be poignant but instead was corny and possibly ridiculous (depending on how you interpret it).

And I can’t downplay how vivid and detailed the descriptions of putrefying flesh are.  There are pages and pages of sensory overload on the various stages of zombie decay from the fresh rotters, bloaters, bugs, and finally mummy-like dusters.  And I’m not even going to start on the cannibalistic feasts.  I’m just glad I read this book on an empty stomach:

Mags giggled from deep in what was left of her throat and Joe threw an arm around me, sprays of maggots shooting from the rips in his leather jacket like little grubworm confetti.

A lot of reviewers and authors I admire are raving about this book, praising it for how daring and real it is.  No argument here on how real it is, but the daring part fell flat for me, especially the ending.  More than anything else, however, is the gross factor that was so disgusting and incessant that I had to put DUST down several times while I fought to control my gag reflex.  If I could give this a 1 1/2 bat rating I would, but since the writing itself is good and the world building very creative, it gets a 2 out of 5.  Consider yourself warned.

Sexual Content: None

My Rating (out of 5):
Okay – Somewhat disappointing with significant flaws.  Library/swap/borrow if you want.

Click HERE to read an excerpt from DUST

Previous books in the series:

1. N/A

Also reviewed by:

• Alternative Worlds
• The Book Smugglers
• The Fiction Enthusiast

 

Product Details

• Hardcover: 384 pages
• Publisher: Ace Hardcover; 1 edition (September 7, 2010)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0441019285
• ISBN-13: 978-0441019281
• Cover Art: N/A  

*Disclosure: I received this book courtesy of Penguin books

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