Rate this book

Taking It Back (2011)

by Joseph Talluto(Favorite Author)

4.22 of 5 Votes: 4

ISBN

0987104403 (ISBN13: 9780987104403)

languge

English

genre

Horror

publisher

Severed Press

series

White Flag of the Dead

review 1: Another pretty good entry into Zombie fiction! The story keeps moving at a pretty brisk pace. Unlike the first novel this does bring a few new elements into the zombie mythos (glowing eyes and zombie children that move fast). It also introduces an explanation for the 'why' of the outbreak of the zombie virus. For the most part the story is believable (once you get past the zombies part). I liked that people seemed to help each other more than in the Walking Dead novels (where there is a pretty bleak picture of human nature). There were a few grammatical errors, but nothing huge; overall the writing was pretty solid. I think the only thing that bugged me was the mixture of real locations with fictional names and real locations with real names. The survivors are base... mored on LePort (really Lemont/Lockport combined) and travel through Joslin (Joliet), but travel through Coal City, Romeoville, Morris, Seneca, Ottawa, etc. Also a few real locations seem to be moved geographically. I'm not sure why there was the mixture of names and locations, but for someone familiar with the area the story takes place in, it was a bit annoying, especially when some things like street names were even based on real streets. But overall this was a great, well written, exciting read.
review 2: This is more of a 2.5 but I'll leave it at a 3. The story flows a bit more easily in this book but the character of John grated heavily on my nerves. He's even more Rambo than the first book, if you can believe it. My 3 issues with this novel were 1) Grammar - there seemed to be fewer punctuation and misspelling problems but the lack paragraph indentation was annoying. Also, the author uses the phrase "idly wondered" twice in two pages and again about 20 pages later. Not a super big deal but it shouldn't happen in a well-edited book.2) Sexism {SPOILER} - Sarah has been relegated to being the worried girlfriend while John roams about zombie bashing and rescuing survivors. Near the end of the novel, John and his pal, Charlie, TELL their girlfriends they're getting married. They don't ask. That was the end of my tolerance for this character and for the series in general.3) Politics - {SPOILER} John discovers that the US govt planned the zombie protection areas not to save civilians but to experiment on them. PUH-LEASE. Big government is the bad guy here and it's utterly ridiculous. However, the story is compelling and as in the first novel, the action is worth reading. This could be a decent series if an editor were able to fix the grammatical mistakes and encourage the author to let go of his right wing conspiracy theories and let John be an actual human being instead of Mr. Can-Do-No-Wrong.After the telling not asking marriage thing, though, I'll be skipping the next installment. less

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