The Reapers Are the Angels

Starred review from June 21, 2010
Born into a crumbling society plagued by zombies, all 15-year-old Temple knows is to kill or be killed. When she is assaulted at a safe house, she murders her human attacker, Abraham Todd, and runs from his vengeful brother, Moses. Temple soon acquires a traveling partner, a slow mute by the name of Maury, and begrudgingly takes responsibility for his care, remembering a young boy she swore to protect but couldn't save. Fleeing Moses, the "meatskins," and her own battered conscience, Temple still finds moments of simple joy in the brutal world. Bell (a pseudonym for Joshua Gaylord, author of Hummingbirds) has created an exquisitely bleak tale and an unforgettable heroine whose eye for beauty and aching need for redemption somehow bring wonder into a world full of violence and decay.

Starred review from October 15, 2010

This may be the most beautiful book about zombies this reviewer has ever read. Fifteen-year-old Temple travels alone through a dead world. Born after the apocalypse, this is the only realm she's ever known, and she is perfectly suited to it, dispatching "meatskins" as a matter of course. After she accidentally kills a man who attempted to rape her, his brother vows revenge. Zombies and even her pursuer are a backdrop to a story about Temple's real enemy, the monster she fears herself to be. Bell is a pseudonym for Joshua Gaylord (Hummingbirds). BZG Temple encounters a bulked-up, inbred clan of half-humans who have been injecting a steroidlike fluid derived from zombie brains.

Copyright 2010 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.