A Mad Zombie Party Review

Book: A Mad Zombie Party
Author: Gena Showalter
Series: White Rabbit Chronicles #4 (final)
Genre: YA paranormal, zombies
Source: Physical copy
Publisher: Harlequin Teen
Pages: 448
Release: September 29th, 2015

Goodreads

The enemy has risen from the grave. Together we slayers must stand, or one by one we will fall.

Ali Bell's crew of zombie slayers thought they'd won the war against Anima Industries, the evil company responsible for capturing and experimenting on zombies in an effort to discover the secret to immortality. In the last epic clash, the slayers lost many of their crew and closest friends. But Frosty, the ice man himself, has not recovered from one casualty in particular — the love of his life, Kat Parker. 

On the path to self-annihilation, Frosty receives a message from beyond — Kat's spirit returns, insisting he partner with rogue slayer Camilla Marks. Frosty will do anything for Kat. Except that. Camilla's betrayal caused Kat's death.

But when Anima rises from the grave stronger than ever, Frosty, Camilla and all the slayers will have to work together to survive. And one broken slayer will learn that sometimes the line between hate and attraction is blurred... and the road to redemption may mean letting go of the past and grabbing hold of the future.

It's a few months since the conclusion to Ali's tale. People died, slayers and other innocents among them. For Frosty, the love of his life has been ripped away from him, and he simply cannot deal. That is, until Kat's spirit shows up and demands he partners up with Camilla Marks--the girl who betrayed everyone, a betrayal that resulted in Kat's death. But Frosty and Camilla are going to have to figure out their issues before Anima rises once again...

I was devastated by the ending of the last book. Not because Ali and Cole got their happy ending, but because there were so many loose ends, Frosty in particular. I was really glad to hear that we would be getting an extension, because it was cruel to leave him in such a dark place.

The plot was fine. The action was amazing and exciting. I loved seeing everyone back in action. But what I just couldn't get over were how similar Frosty and Camilla sounded in comparison to Ali, and how some of the plot elements were very similar to the last book.

Frosty began the novel off in at the bottom of a bottle, or in a the bed of a stranger. His grief is understandable, given everything he's been through with Kat. It was neat to see him crawl his way back into the world of the living, and for him to find his way again. From the very beginning, he had a very strong support system, with Ali and the rest of Cole's crew doing their best to pull him out of it. Frosty's grief was at first made bearable for himself as he was able to see Kat, but as we go through the novel, we see him beginning to accept her death, and the fact that even though she's still there, they isn't a future for them. It's not easy for him, but slowly, he's able to get back up on his feet and find a way to live again.

Camilla has a lot of making up to do. After her actions in the last book, she was doing her best to keep her head up and make amends. Exiled for a betrayal no one knows the full story of, Milla began the book knowing that no matter what she did, nothing would bring back the lives that were lost because of her. That doesn't stop her from trying, and we saw her trying to stop zombies before they became threats to her old friends. As a new character, we get to see a lot of her history, and find out what makes her tick. She has a rough backstory, which gained sympathy points, and really helped explain why she chose to betray everyone in the last book. As the book progresses, Milla learns not only to forgive herself, but to also love herself for who she is and what's she's done, not matter how terrible they were.

After learning in the previous books of how slayers can heal one another with their slayers' fire, and that zombies can actually be saved, it was nice to see those discoveries being put to good use. The slayers have completely changed their morals and fighting techniques. We also get to see new recruits--people who have been saved from "going crazy." In a way, I really like that, since they're doing their best to find as many "crazy" kids as possible, since the majority of them aren't crazy and can actually see zombies. All the ethical work was definitely a nice change!

I liked how Milla completely changed everything; she shook up the structure we've become so familiar with, and completely brought a new mindset on what kind of powers slayers can have. She became the opposite of Ali in a way, with powers doing opposite things. It definitely was neat to see how Milla and Ali's powers clashed. Milla was definitely more of a natural badass than Ali, and she really contrasted to Ali by being a completely different kind of reckless. Unlike with Ali, Milla was in the know of everything zombie-slaying related, but not spiritually-related.

As mentioned before, I had a few issues with this novel. It might be because I had high expectations for it, hoping for something completely unexpected and different to occur. I felt like there were some aspects that were being dragged out from the original trilogy, the issue with Anima in particular. Don't get me wrong, there was nothing wrong with having Anima in the plot, but the fact that Anima was still up and kicking felt a little repetitive to me. In the end, everything goes back to Ali, which to me, still sort of made her the star of the show in a stealing-Milla's-glory way. I'm not sure how I feel about that. Similarly, the voices of Frosty and Camilla seemed to blend in a little too much with Ali's voice from the last three books. Yes, they were dealing with slightly different issues, but their snark was nearly the same. I would have preferred there to be a bit more variety in voices, something other than pure snark.

The ending felt a little too easy for me, but I still enjoyed it. The last notes from Ali, Milla, and Kat were really fun to read about, just to see how life is going. And, is it just me, or was the author hinting at another zombie series? Featuring direct relatives of our dear slayers? Yes? If so, I'm going to be waiting for it! Hopefully it won't be about Anima again, and will be something new and fresh!

I had a few issues, and it wasn't as good as the original 3, but I still loved it!