Tuesday 1 September 2015

Love's Curse, by Darren Gallagher

2.5 - 3 stars


*I received a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review*

Love’s Curse is a fast-paced zombie adventure that had me wavering between 2 and 3 stars - it needed just a little more meat on its bones for me to really sink my teeth into.

Since the zombie apocalypse arrived, Justin and his friends have been sheltering in the fairly safe haven of a Post Office Sorting Office, venturing out only on food and supply scavenging missions. That is, until Justin receives a phone call begging for help from a girl he’s long pined for and, despite the protests of his friends (who don’t think much of Camille), is soon winding his way across the country to go to her aid – only what he finds when he arrives isn’t quite what he was hoping for.


While I was intrigued by the set-up and liked the pace with which the story was told (the action scenes were a particularly highlight – especially the one at the petrol station), I found the focus on Justin and the dynamics of his relationship with Camille to be rather restrictive. I would have liked to have known more about the zombie outbreak and Justin’s history with his friends – when did it start? Did society collapse all at once? How did he and his friends manage to survive? Are they bothered by what they’ve been through? How are their phones all still working? Was Camille ever an actual girlfriend? What is it he likes about her? 


I must admit that I struggled with the dynamics of the relationship between Camille and Justin and, aside from not being clear why he liked her (other than thinking she was beautiful) and at the risk of sounding like a pretentious actor, I didn’t understand the motivations behind the actions of she and Vic come the end of the book. A better understanding of this, and a few more details on things other than those that affected Justin’s love life would have gone a long way to build a better picture of the world our characters were living in and helped bump up my rating.



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