Graveminder by Melissa Marr

Graveminder by Melissa Marr

2011, William Morrow

Website / Twitter / Goodreads / Amazon

Rating

Synopsis: Melissa Mar is known to young adult readers as the author of the popular faery series Wicked Lovely. Her debut leap into adult fiction lands her in the small community of Claysville, a town where the dead walk free unless their graves are not properly tended. Into this eerie maelstrom, Rebekkah Barrow descends as she returns to a place that she once believed she knew

Why read: Received for review

What impressed me: Graveminder went places I never even considered until we were in the thick of things. It was a story that made sense piece by piece, but you never figured out what was coming beforehand. I loved the town and its rules and secrets. I absolutely loved the otherworldly aspects of the book and wish we could have experienced even more of it. This was a zombie novel that is nothing like any before it. I truly thought I wasn't going to enjoy it and found myself very excited by it in the end.

What disappointed me: Rebekkah rubbed me the wrong way most of the time. She was so back and forth with Byron, not from denial of her feelings, but rather from misplaced guilt over something that happened so many years before. She was strong one moment and weak the next. She wanted out of Claysville as soon as possible, but agrees to stay with almost no prodding. She was a tough character to care about because she was so hard to figure out what she actually wanted.

Recommended: Not the conventional bloody mayhem zombie novel, but I think most will find themselves pleasantly surprised by Graveminder.