The First Days by Rhiannon Frater

Hey everyone, how's it going? This week I read The First Days, and I have to say, I am a bit horrified. Don't get me wrong, it was a great book, and wonderfully written, the only thing I had problem with was the... no boundaries... The author did not hold back anything, and they didn't care who you were, you were going to die a horrible death. It was more realistic than any zombie book I have read before. So let me tell you a bit about it.

We start the book alongside a woman standing outside her house as she watches tiny fingers scrape at her from under the door. It doesn't take long for you to realize that these tiny fingers belong to her three year old son whom she had found being eaten alive by her zombified husband. Then you meet her other son, who had been eaten trying to save her.
It is obvious she is in shock as she stands there watching her dead family try to break from the house so they can eat her. But just as they are about to get free from the house, a truck bursts from the road and another woman with a shot gun shouts at her to get in the car.
She rushes to her and gets into the truck just as her son runs full speed into the window and continues trying to eat her. Needless to say, the zombies in this book can run, and they can run fast.
The two girls get to know each other and share their stories as they head towards the downtown area in search of the blonde girls father. When he tells them to get out of town, as they can't handle the amount of zombies in town, they have no choice but to head for the mountains in hopes of avoiding the mass amounts of people dying.
The blonde girl tells the main character about her story, which is that her wife was killed by a zombie, but she didn't know that when she came home and was attacked by her with her chest ripped open.
They stop for supplies and realize that they won't be able to survive long if they can't find somewhere safe to stay. They end up finding a puppy, and keep it as their own, and the main character realizes that she forgot her son. No, not the one that got eaten, but her other son who was away on a school trip when she outbreak started. So both girls set out to find him and eventually find a place to stay that is safe when they are taken in by a kind elderly couple that owns a gun store in a small town. They stay there and get ready to go find her son, supplied by the couple and ready for their mission.
But are they ready to take the dangerous trip out to find him with only enough gas to make it there and then back? Or will they find that he has been eaten by the mass amounts of zombies in the area? 
The only thing I can say is that the dead are rising, and they aren't ready to give up their hunt for human flesh just yet.

This book was a great read, even though it scared the living crap out of me. The writing style was great, and the story line was exciting until the last page. There are other books in this series, but the ending fit nicely for me I feel, so I will move on and maybe come back to it another time. If you love the Zombie theme, as most people do now, certainly give this book a try. It gives new light on the 'fast running' zombies, and now I have to go buy a gun, and a knife, and a armoured cell... It scared me, that's all I can say.

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