Allison Hewitt Is Trapped: A Zombie Novel by Madeleine Roux
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
When the zombie apocalypse happens, Allison Hewitt is working her regular shift at a local bookstore. Allison and several co-workers hide inside the book store’s office, complete with a security monitor and Allison’s laptop. As zombies wander the store, Allison and the rest of the survivors must band together to survive and consider their next move as they wonder if help will ever arrive.
Told in the form of blog entries, "Allison Hewitt is Trapped" takes a page from "The Walking Dead" and concentrates less on the hows and whys of the zombie apocalypse and more on how it impacts the characters and civilizations that survive. The story is a personal one for Allison as we watch her grow and develop from those first days, huddled together with fellow book store survivors in a back room to a grizzled veteran whose chosen instrument of zombie destruction is a fire axe.
And while it seems as though zombie novels are a dime a dozen these days, "Allison Hewitt" proves there’s still enough life in the genre to keep things interesting and that the genre isn’t getting stale just yet. Most of this success stems from the first-person perspective of Allison. By fashioning the book as a series of blog entries, we get to see a bit of self-reflection by Allison on not only the zombie uprising but also how she is changing over the course of the book. Over the course of the story, Allison changes as a character and person, reacting to the on-going situation.
Madeline Roux wisely starts the story small, allowing us to get to know Allison and her fellow survivors a bit before expanding the novel’s universe over the course of the story. The journey Allison takes feels authentic and the story rises and falls on her emotions, her victories and her defeats.
Nashville Book Worm 