FIEND BY PETER STENSON

Title: Fiend by Peter Stenson
Source: I received this book from Blogging for Books in exchange for an honest review.
Purchase:  Book Depository: http://www.bookdepository.com/?a_aid=11191201

 Synopsis: "When Chase sees the little girl in umbrella socks disemboweling the Rottweiler, he's not too concerned.  As a longtime meth addict, he's no stranger to such horrifying, drug fueled hallucinations.
But as he and his fellow junkies soon discover, the little girl is no illusion.  The end of  the world really has arrived.  And with Chase's life already shattered by addiction, the apocalypse might actually be an opportunity--a last chance to hit restart, win back the love of his life, and become the person he once dreamed of being.
That is, if the darkness inside him doesn't destroy everything--again."

What I Love:  First off, I absolutely love the cover of this book.  I'm a big fan of simple, minimal art and the artwork is straight to the point.  The color scheme is beautiful and really pops.  I enjoyed this book a lot up until the end.  The main character, Chase, is a really strong character and, despite being a meth addict who shoots up for the majority of the book, he seems to have a decent head on his shoulders in regards to planning a course of action.  Throughout the novel, he is struggling with who he is and the person he wants to be.  That's something anyone can relate to and I love when a book can connect with its reader on that level.  Now, this is a zombie novel, but I loved the way he approached the subject matter.  I don't want to give anything away, but I really enjoyed the way he put his own spin on the zombie genre.  Overall, Fiend is a super ease and enjoyable read.  Reading it was time well spent.

What I Loved a Little Less:  Like anyone else, I'm a huge fan of a good F-bomb and the language Stenson uses is without a doubt colorful, but toward the end it kind of got so over used that it became more annoying.  I felt the same about some of the characters' dialogue.  There was a lot of "for reals" and "yo"s.  Now, I don't do drugs, but that can't possibly be the entire vocab of a meth addict.  It just didn't feel right or natural in my head as I was reading.  Aside from Chase, I didn't particularly care for any of the other characters.  There were definitely some parallels between this book and The Walking Dead, at least the TV show anyway.  If you watch the show, you'll catch on to these when you read the book.  I picked up on a few of these and it always took me out of the story.    Now, the thing that I don't like about zombie stories is they're difficult to wrap up with a nice neat resolution.  That being said, I wasn't a fan of the ending.  It seemed like a rushed attempt to bring the story to an end.  I'm not saying you need to solve the zombie apocalypse for a good ending, but at least give me a chance to care about what is going on instead of just pushing me out of the door.

Favorite Line:  Our favorite memories are Polaroids of ignorance. (pg: 182)

Rating: 4 little zombie babies

*I received this book for free from Blogging for Books in exchange for an honest review.