★★★★★★★★☆☆
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Dearly, Beloved by Lia Habel[/caption]Since putting Dearly, Departed in my “freaking awesome” category, I was eager to move on to second in the series, Dearly, Beloved.
Dearly, Beloved picks up right where its predecessor left off. The zombie invasion is over, but it has left a population of new non-violent zombies in its wake. Some have been embraced and protected by family members, but more are now society's outcasts. Even with the release of the vaccine, there is considerable distrust and dislike of the zombies by the living, many of which have taken to the streets to protest the co-existence with the undead. And the biting incident at Wolfe’s public execution and discovery of a vaccine-resistant mutation of the zombie infection has only fueled the anit-undead’s fire.
Let me first say that I really did enjoy this book. While Dearly, Departed really focused on building the characters and providing a setting, Dearly, Beloved went full speed into an adventurous plot full of surprises and “Oh my god! I can’t believe that just happened!” moments. For the first 75 percent of the book I didn’t want to put it down. At some parts, I thought my Kindle was growing attached to my hands.
As the end approached, however, the loose ends to the numerous plots (will get into this in a minute) were still flopping around like wet spaghetti noodles instead of coming together into a palatable dish. The final quarter of the book seemed to crawl at a snail’s pace and, I admit, I began skimming paragraphs to speed things up, hoping I would get to THE END. (Not the end of the book, but the part where everything begins to make sense). It never really came.
One of the major plots was left as a cliff hanger (I hope so) and the final chapter with Nora and Bram was kind of disappointing. Don’t get me wrong, I thought it was lovely and romantic and I probably would’ve been all about it if 1. More of the exciting plots had been brought to a sufficient close and 2. It hadn’t drug on sooooo long. But I was a little pissypants over the plots so, at that point, it was hard to make me happy.
One of most common criticism I’ve seen for Dearly, Departed and, now, Dearly, Beloved is the changing perspectives. I’ve heard it was confusing or difficult to follow, but I firmly disagree. I love most of the multiple perspectives because they allow for a more intimate understanding of the story and its characters. In Dearly, Beloved, I enjoyed the addition of Michael and Vespertine (and I especially like the newly discovered depth and understanding of Vespertine – I think she’s worth her own story). I didn’t so much care for the flower-growing zombie, Laura. She seemed to be more of an extra set of eyes than a character of interest. (I would’ve much rather seen H or Coalhouse).
My biggest criticism? The plot...s. Can I put a few extra S’s on there to indicate the exorbitant number of plots? No? In fact, I can’t actually recall a main plot. Was there one?
I’m not a fan of spoilers and I plan to keep this vague, but read the following list at your own risk:
Some of the plots included...
Patient One (Who is he? Why do The Changed want him?), The zombie mutation, The Murder (Who are they?), The Changed, Pamela’s PTSD, Coalhouse’s mission, Michael’s plans, Vespertine’s character revelations, and, the most ridiculous of them all, the “search” for Aunt Gene.
Not to say that most of these plots weren’t exciting, but they spent so much time competing with one another that I felt like I couldn’t focus on enjoying any of them. When the action picked up in one, it would switch over to something else, losing momentum. And, as I said before, the fact that very few of these plots actually came together or were resolved at the end was really frustrating. I’m assuming they’re being left open for the next book, but I think it would’ve been better to bring at least some sort of closure to most of them and leave one open-ended for the next book.
As I said before, this was still a good book and I enjoyed reading it, but it had so much potential to be great.
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