Matt C. Staff Picks
Technically, it’s a zombie horror story, complete with peril and gore. But it’s a story that carries such unexpected substance and emotional weight that it broke my stupid heart on numerous occasions. The characters are complex, fleshed out and uniquely motivated. There's tense action, and wholly original revelations all throughout the book. M.R. Carey took a genre that's overcrowded with repetitive tropes or Walking-Dead-wannabes, and created something that's equal parts chilling and heart-breaking.
-- Matt
"The human race was to be wiped out and the world made clean again for wiser occupants without undue delay." Beautifully bleak premise. And paced in a way that while the oncoming doom is ever present, it isn't always the focus. The characters are the focus. And they cope and live their lives the way they best know how. Some drink, some work, some deny. And when the inevitable end finally comes, Shute orchestrates a brutal, but true closing to their stories and convictions.
-- Matt
The Black Panther Party organized a community centered around respect and perseverance. Food was provided for children. Safety was provided for families. They policed the police, ensuring officers operated under the legal guidelines and nothing more. They wanted equality for all, not just whites, not just Blacks, but for all. They were a movement of positivity and progressive ideas, fueled by generations of unjust oppression. Huey's words are immaculate, and universal to anyone with a sense of what's right. He speaks from experience and with wisdom. He's seen the world in its ugliest, lowest form, yet he continues to fight in the hope that proper change can one day come.
-- Matt
