Review: Dead Over Heels by Alison Kemper #zombies

May Contain Spoilers

Review:

I enjoyed Alison Kemper’s Donna of the Dead, so when I saw Dead Over Heels on Netgalley, I was all over it. I was expecting a continuation of that story, but Dead Over Heels features different characters. It is set during the same time period, in the mountains of North Carolina. It’s not as campy as the previous book, but once again, I was hooked and couldn’t step away from the zombie apocalypse.

Ava’s parents purchased a vacation home in rural North Carolina, so she’s stuck in the cold mountains during Thanksgiving break, instead of prowling the mall with her friends in Florida. After her parents head to town, a 45 minute drive from their new digs, Ava’s world comes crashing to a halt. Cole, who has been doing yard work for her father, comes pounding up the porch steps with unbelievable news – the zombie flu has arrived from China, and a band of zombies are about to eat them both.

Ava doesn’t believe him at first, but a glance at the shambling corpses quickly convinces her. Grabbing her purse, which holds her live saving EpiPen, she races into the woods with Cole. She’s desperate to stay alive and find her parents. With zero wilderness survival skills, it’s a miracle that Cole was there to shepherd her away from the zombies. He is familiar with the woods, he has extensive camping experience, and he has hunted on the mountain his entire life. And oh, yeah, he’s drop dead gorgeous.

I am not a big fan of roughing it, so Ava’s extreme roughing it adventure was spellbinding. She and Cole have practically no supplies, and did I mention that she is allergic to everything? One insect bite and she goes into anaphylactic shock. She is toast without her EpiPen. She has spent her entire life avoiding the great out doors, and now she’s fleeing through the woods from zombies, trying to avoid wasps, bees, and every other stinging creature out there. The zombies are the least of her worries. While they are certainly a threat, she can outrun them. A bug is a death sentence.

Dead Over Heels is a frantic race through the woods, battling hunger, the weather, bears, and the walking dead. With all of the adrenalin pounding through their systems, Ava and Cole are constantly in a state of distress. They hit it off like oil and water at first, due to their very different backgrounds. Cole thinks of Ava as a Floridiot, and Ava rudely calls Cole a redneck. As they are forced to rely on each other, and as they save each other from death time and again, they begin to develop feelings for each other. Who could blame them? They have no idea if anyone else is still alive, or whether everyone on the planet is now a stinky zombie. It’s comforting that they have each other.

Told in alternating POV, I found both Cole and Ava likable and relatable. I charged through Dead Over Heels, and I can hardly wait to see what’s next.

Grade: B

Review copy provided by publisher

From Amazon:

The end of the world just might be their perfect beginning…

Glenview, North Carolina. Also known—at least to sixteen-year-old Ava Pegg—as the Land of Incredibly Boring Vacations. What exactly were her parents thinking when they bought a summer home here? Then the cute-but-really-annoying boy next door shows up at her place in a panic…hollering something about flesh-eating zombies attacking the town.

At first, Ava’s certain that Cole spent a little too much time with his head in the moonshine barrel. But when someone—or something—rotted and terrifying emerges from behind the woodpile, Ava realizes this is no hooch hallucination. The undead are walking in Glenview, and they are hungry. Panicked, Ava and Cole flee into the national forest. No supplies, no weapons. Just two teenagers who don’t even like each other fighting for their lives. But that’s the funny thing about the Zombpocalypse. You never know when you’ll meet your undead end. Or when you’ll fall dead over heels for a boy…

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