Hollowland

http://www.amazon.com/Hollowland-Hollows-1-Amanda-Hocking-ebook/dp/B00466H8JK/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1391551309&sr=1-1&keywords=Hollowlands

Rating:  5 stars

I received Hollowland as a free book on the Kindle, and to be honest, as a zombie novel I wasn't expecting much.  However, I found myself drawn to Remy as a character, and to the time-tested tale of her looking for her brother, who survived the zombie invasion when they were in quarantine.  Now, the reasons behind him leaving were obviously veiled in the beginning, and the reader is obviously aware of it.  Come on now, who takes a sick 8 year old boy instead of healthy people?

As the story goes on, though, you begin to be invested in the characters involved.  Lazlo, Blue, Harlow, even the craziness that is Koerech and the refugees, all of these become faces, real people in your mind's eye.  In zombie novels, too often people are put forward as attractive, would-be heroes and then they are taken all too soon, usually in a gory manner.

Hocking does a good job of keeping it feeling like a zombie novel, while still keeping true to the character's story.  I felt like this book was more like the Walking Dead than, say, Dawn of the Dead.

I read this book through to the end, and I couldn't stop!  I hope that the second book lives up to the delivery the first book offered.