Angel can function in day to day life as long as she has brains once every two days or so. Rowland reworks the zombie trope without completely removing the essentials of a zombie. Angel has a lot to overcome even before she gets zombified, but the zombification adds an element of distance that allows tough things to be talked about without that dragging down dullness often found in literary fiction. And she somehow manages to keep this a secret in a small town, certainly a monumental task.Īngel’s problems are a combination or fantastical ones (must find brains to survive) and completely real world ones (a history of an abusive mother and a father with alcoholism).

On the other hand, Angel has cravings for brains. Angel’s world of trailers, beer cans, and nothing to do reminds me a lot of my childhood growing up in Vermont. It’s a world that’s simultaneously familiar and special, which is what makes urban fantasy fun. It’s been a long time since I read a book that hits all the elements I love in literature like this one–urban fantasy style horror, a setting that rings familiar to me, a completely relatable main character, and a fun love interest. Second, look at that cover! Yeah, the whole thing just screamed my named. I bought the kindle edition of this book the instant it came out as a birthday present to myself for two reasons.

As her oddly gloppy energy drinks start to run out, though, Angel finds herself having cravings for something found in the morgue–brains.

It certainly helps that pills and alcohol no longer seem to do anything for her. A high school drop-out living with her alcoholic and periodically abusive father, Angel decides that she should seize this opportunity. Someone mysteriously drops off medicinal energy drinks along with a note that she must work loyally for at least a month at a job newly acquired for her at the city morgue. Angel wakes up in the hospital to discover she was found naked and overdosed on drugs on the the side of the road in her small town after a fight with her boyfriend, Randy.

My life as a white trash zombie