Figgy O'Connell

“You’re a very odd kindergarten teacher, Quentin.”
“Thank you, sir.”

Actual Rating 3.5

Q’s life revolves around zombies and the outbreak she is sure will happen one day, she’s skilled in martial arts, oh, and she’s best friends with a six year old.

She has a habit of making fun of things, then worrying that she’s going to get in trouble for not having figured out that whole “how to be grown up” thing yet.

She’s smooth

Q gurgled. “Kids? I’m only twenty-two! I don’t have kids, not that I don’t want to someday, with the right person. I love kids. In my spare time I teach them how to beat each other up. But I don’t even have a boyfriend. I’m not gay though, I’m completely hetero, just unattached. That’s what my friends call me, Hetereounattached. When they’re not calling me Q.”

She’s good at explaining things in a concise manner

“Trouble?” Dave asked.
“I’m not sure how to say this,” Q said, “so I’ll make it simple. We’ve all grown used to Kate. Like a toe grows used to a toe infection which, in turn, grows used to the toe, or grows on the toe, but sometimes the foot needs to choose between the disease and the cure and when an antibiotic foot powder shows up, it’s time to say goodbye—”
Angela cut in. “Q, be simpler.”
“I’m antibiotic foot powder,” Q said.

She’s good with words

“It’s like mnemonic plague.”
“When a bunch of people infect one another with clever rhymes to help them remember things?” Angela said. “You mean bubonic plague.”

Ok, maybe not, but she's a whole lot of fun!


I’ll admit, when I requested this book I was a little unsure about it. It sounded too silly. It sounded like the whole thing would be a bit of a mockery of zombies. What it actually resembled was something a little closer to Shaun of the Dead, but set in Aus.


The things that bothered me:

Her “fragrant spray”. I wasn’t sure if I should be picturing deodorant or perfume. Deodorant is usually the closest thing to a fragrant spray, perfume notsomuch, but I got the feeling based on something she said once that it’s the perfume kind.

Sheepskin slipper. I know this is technically what they are, and I know it’s not every day conversation, but what Aussie would call these “sheepskin slippers” rather than “uggies”?

Weights were given in “pounds” rather than “kilos”.

I didn’t really understand the infatuation with Rabbit, but of course the whole story and a lot of the resolution wouldn’t have happened if he didn’t exist.
I guess I just felt that chasing after some guy she’d spoken to for two minutes, a guy who had so many different values than she did, felt a bit… out of character, perhaps.

Use of “Z” to refer to zombies, singularly and collectively.
“Z was on the roof.”
“if Z could bend steel, Z could move boxes.”
On the one hand, it was kinda cool, on the other, it was inconsistent and brought me out of the story while I tried to work out how that would work with a different “species”.
“Human was on the roof” and “If human could bend steel, human could move boxes.”
Alternatively:
“Humans was on the roof” and “If humans could bend steel, humans could move boxes.”
I know it’s pedantic, but it did pull me out of the story.

The Explanation of the zombie virus. This goes into the whole wrap up of the story, so I’m going to
The virus is in the spleen, people who have never eaten meat and nasty chemicals live longer because their spleen has had less of a beating in its time, and has had to battle with fewer toxins.
People who have never eaten meat but who do feed on human (including highly toxified human) can still recover, but those who ate meat and toxins, especially recently, will become “Z” eventually.
A) Why would eating someone who was toxic not make it more likely those zombies would stay zombies and never recover?
2) Why would something stay animated so long as the spleen was intact, even if the virus WERE in the spleen? The spleen is not a thing associated with the ability to walk around and continue to function. it.

Sometimes the physics REALLY didn’t make sense

In all three of these examples they're crossing one piece of rope strung between a tree and a building. I don't know about you, but whenever I've tried to cross a rope, I've not been able to stay on top of it. The rope ROLLS.

“Keep your body on top of the rope and your legs and arms wrapped around it,” Q said. “Hold on with your hands, knees and feet, and keep moving.”

Pious Kate’s fingers dropped from the rope. She hung from the makeshift harness like a marionette whose strings had been cut.

Q reached Pious Kate and swung her legs under the woman. She looped her calves over the rope and clenched it between her feet, bracing for the weight.
Pious Kate dropped. Q became her harness.

Things I loved:


The characters:

Hannah. Sure, she was a bit unrealistic for a six year old, but I’ve known kids the same age who would say at least SOME of the things she said.

Dave, or “Creepy old caretaker guy”. He had guns, he had a survival plan, he mumbled a lot, but I really liked him.

Angela. Ex marine biologist, mother, recent vegan, and someone I’d like to know. She reminds me of people I HAVE met before, so I was instantly enamoured with her.
Q, of course, but you already know about her.


The humour.

The style of this story was very dry, a little bit weird, very Aussie. It was amusing to read, and kept me coming back for more. I never expected this to be a book I couldn’t put down and which I spent every spare minute reading, but it definitely was.
The writing was colloquial, easy, fun, and engaging.

Not only did Q know she had lost her one true chance at happiness with the lust of her life, but she knew that Mrs Mason knew, too. The woman kept saying cruel things designed to make Q realize that she would be alone forever, like “Clean the board,” and “Have you finished marking the animal pictures yet?” and “Who’s on playground duty today?” Jab after jab after jab. Q didn’t know how much more she could take.

The story wasn’t predictable, it wasn’t your run of the mill zombie story with people holed up in a cabin, waiting for their supplies to run out.

And somehow, the author managed to wrap it up, complete with resolution and some kind of outlook to the future within this rather short, standalone novel.


I recommend this for fans of Shaun of the Dead, as opposed to things like Zombies! Zombies! Zombies! and Zombie Strippers! and will be keeping an eye out for other works by this author (something time travel related perhaps, as suggested by her facebook page?).

This ebook was provided for free in exchange for a review by Momentum Books through NetGalley. Any errors found in the text may not be there in the final copy.