Retro Review: My Life as a White Trash Zombie by Diana Rowland

I am back to my archive project! Look for some golden oldies. Hopefully you'll find something new to you to help topple your tbr pile!

My Life As A White Trash Zombie by Diana Rowland

Published July 2011

Dark Fiction  |  Goodreads  |  Amazon 

Source: Library Borrow

Angel Crawford is a loser.

Living with her alcoholic deadbeat dad in the swamps of southern Louisiana, she's a high school dropout with a pill habit and a criminal record who's been fired from more crap jobs than she can count. Now on probation for a felony, it seems that Angel will never pull herself out of the downward spiral her life has taken.

That is, until the day she wakes up in the ER after overdosing on painkillers. Angel remembers being in a horrible car crash, but she doesn't have a mark on her. To add to the weirdness, she receives an anonymous letter telling her there's a job waiting for her at the parish morgue—and that it's an offer she doesn't dare refuse.

Before she knows it she's dealing with a huge crush on a certain hunky deputy and a brand new addiction: an overpowering craving for brains. Plus, her morgue is filling up with the victims of a serial killer who decapitates his prey—just when she's hungriest!

Angel's going to have to grow up fast if she wants to keep this job and stay in one piece. Because if she doesn't, she's dead meat.

Literally.

My 2 Cents For Free!

I have wanted to read this book ever since I first saw the fabulous cover on someone’s blog. It’s really eye catching, isn't it? Talk about a lucky author. And best of all, it fits its main character Angel perfectly. Well, I finally made time to read it and, uh, I’m glad I did but I didn't expect it to take nearly a month to get through. 

The book starts out when Angel wakes up in the hospital with no recollection of how she ended up there. She's told she overdosed and she figures it could have happened, she really is no angel, and though she vaguely remembers a crash she isn't injured. As she's making haste to get home, she's given a bag with a note and a cooler filled with bottles of some sort of chunky goo. The note explains that she is being offered a job at the morgue and that she must accept it, as well as drink the goo, OR ELSE. She sees this as a bit of good luck since she’s a self-professed loser and screw-upper and decides to follow the demands of the anonymous letter. What the hell, her life can't get any worse right? 

Angel drinks the bottled “shakes” and realizes it's pretty good, if a wee bit chunky and meaty tasting. At the morgue, she realizes she's going to be driving around dead bodies and assisting in autopsies. It skeeves her out at first but like the shakes, she realizes she enjoys it, especially when she sniffs her first human brain and her stomach starts growling. What is going on? Even though the title does kind of give away the game, I’ll let you guess. 

So basically the rest of the book follows Angel as she struggles with her new and improved self (the shakes make her feel good, enhance her senses a little and make her stronger), meets some interesting guys, deals with her drunken dad, gets embroiled in a decapitation mystery and gets past her white trash upbringing and realizes life may just have something to offer other than booze, drugs and horrible boyfriends. She grows up quite a bit during this book. Yay Angel. 

Angel's voice is sarcastic and self-deprecating, she’s funny and she’s crabby and sometimes she’s a defensive bitch but she’s also an optimist who takes all of the changes in her life in stride. I liked her a lot. Despite her rough upbringing she still has a soft heart and her relationships are complicated and believable. She doesn't blame her mistakes on the world and isn't a poor me type. She knows she’s a mess and knows that a lot of it is entirely her own fault.

But alas, something is off with the pacing and parts of the book are soooo draggy with very little going on that I had to force myself to keep going. I’m glad I did because the ending is satisfying and answers many of the questions that came up while reading. But again, it took me nearly 3 weeks to finish a 310 page book so I can’t rate it as highly as I’d like to. I think if you’re looking for a fun (albeit sometimes slow) zombie tale with edgy charm, decently drawn characters, a wee bit of gore and zero sappiness you’ll find a lot to like here. 

⭐⭐⭐1/2