Dearly Beloved

***

3 Stars/5

Thanks to Netgalley and Random House Publishing Group for giving me this book to review.

Since “The Laz” has hit New Victoria both the living and the dead have been co-existing, however, they are not at peace with each other. Some of the living believe that the dead are abominations which should be wiped out, and a group of the dead believe they have to fight the living for their survival and rights. Caught in-between these groups are Nora Dearly a girl who is immune to “The Laz” and the dead boy she loves Bram.

While there is a lot to Dearly Beloved, I just did not find it as interesting as the first. The pace was so slow and I feel it did not have the adventure of the first book. However it was an interesting story as it looks at how both the living and the dead react to living together in the same city.

This book has six points of views and the voices all sounded similar to me. I would not know who was telling the story unless it was said at the start of the book. However, unlike the last book I felt we needed all the points of view or we would not understand the story.

Bram and Nora’s romance in this book is not as interesting as Dearly Departed as it had lost it star-crossed quality, and also it seems Habel was more interested in building the storyline for the third book.

The ending does leave you wanting to read the next book, however I do hope it is more like Dearly Departed, and this is just the slow middle book. I would recommend this to people who like Dearly Departed, or those who like Zombie books.