Title: Deathless Divide
Author: Justina Ireland
Series: Dread Nation #2
Previous Series Reviews: Dread Nation
Publication Date: February 4, 2020
Publisher: Balzer + Bray
Format: Edelweiss eARC

I am so glad I read this and Dread Nation back to back, because I’m pretty sure the wait would have killed me otherwise.

Straight up deceased. I loved Dread Nation so much, and I thought I knew what I was getting into when I picked up Deathless Divide. But you know what? I WAS SO FREAKING WRONG. You do not hear that phrase come out of my mouth very often.

Deathless Divide is a brutal, beautiful book that pulls no punches as it drags us out West, treats us to new characters and new danger, and plays mercilessly with our emotions.

This book wraps up nicely, and I can see it ending here as a duology, but goodness how I hope there will be more books. The adventure doesn’t feel quite done, there’s room for me, and I for one am not quite ready to leave this world and these people. I’m in it for the long haul.

This review will contain spoilers for Dread Nation.

❧ Jane and Katherine are back with a vengeance, and gosh did I miss these girls.

You know, even though it’s been, like, a week since I read the first book. But even one day without them was unbearable.

This book adds Katherine as a point-of-view character, and I absolutely loved this addition.

Not that Jane can’t carry the narration on her own, but it was nice to have a little contrast to her brashness and abrasiveness. I just absolutely loved the chance to get to know Katherine better. I enjoyed her in Dread Nation, but there’s nothing quite like being in her head.

While I didn’t feel like Katherine has a full arc in this book, there’s definitely some character growth, and it was nice to see her adapting.

She was tough in the first book, no denying that, but here, she really comes into her own. She’s more resourceful and independent, and I just enjoyed being able to travel in her head and see where the journey would take her and learning more about the small nuances that made up her character that were maybe taken for granted in Dread Nation.

❧ This book pulls absolutely none of the punches. It’s a kick straight to the gut.

You can tighten your abs and prepare all you want, but this is still going to knock the breath out of you, at the very least. There’s no way to prepare for it. I was so woefully not at all prepared, and it took me by surprise, and before too long into the book, I knew I was screwed.

I had so many feels that I’m pretty sure I’ve aged a decade in the four days it took to read this.

I love this cast so much that I couldn’t help but fret over them. Every page felt like it brought something new and different, with danger and twists around every turn. You thought the first one was a wild ride? Ohoho, sweet summer child, you’re in for a treat. It felt like there was so much more going on in this one, from zombies to a Wild West feel, and it was lovely.

❧ This book revisits some favorites from Dread Nation, but also introduces a new bunch of characters to love.

Which is to be expected as characters travel and meet others, I suppose. There were definitely some familiar faces, which brought about so many mixed feelings because, wow, people are complicated. At the same time, though, I enjoyed a lot of the new characters (even the furry ones) that were introduced. It was hard, once you heard even snippets of their story, not to root for them, at the very least.

The only problem with having so many characters, though, is that there are some that will inevitably fall by the wayside.

I definitely felt like this suffered a little bit from that, where I thought some character arcs were left dangling or I wish it had explored them a little more, but … I mean, this was a pretty lengthy book as it is. You do what you can. Did I feel like any of this was necessary for the book to have a satisfactory ending? No. But I hate unfinished business.

❧ The representation in this book just gets better and better.

In Dread Nation, it was clear that Jane was bisexual and Katherine was ace, and this book doubles down on both of them, but it also ups the ante a little bit.

Katherine suffers from anxiety and anxiety attacks, which wow, talk about problematic in the middle of a zombie apocalypse. The struggle and feeling felt familiar, though, and I appreciated that touch of realism, given my own struggles with anxiety.

I actually don’t want to say too much about the diversity, because I think part of the fun of the book was discovering more of the world and everything (and everyone) there is to see, and I don’t want to take that away. This book was a journey, and I had a lot of fun in just following it and going along for the ride.

❧ The relationship between Katherine and Jane in this is just … everything.

I absolutely love the “enemies forced to work together” trope, which Dread Nation had going for it, and it worked so well. But are Katherine and Jane officially friends by the end of that book? Ehhhhh … it’s debatable. Some might say yes. Jane would probably say no. Regardless of exactly where they stand, their time together in this book is not easy.

I just really loved and appreciated the dynamic here, and how so much of the story was girls supporting girls.

Even if it was grudgingly. But still. There are so many books out there with girls tearing down other girls, and it was refreshing to see that in a zombie apocalypse, women can still come together and be fierce.

❧ There’s a villain in this, which I can say absolutely nothing about, except that I had all the freaking feels, and I was so mad at first that Ireland would dare … but in the end, I sort of loved it?

And I loved them. Because feelings are complicated, and what’s a little homicide when you’re in love, am I right? I just had SO MANY EMOTIONS. I still have so many emotions. I don’t think I’ve ever been this angry at an antagonist before, and I realize I’m probably angry for all the wrong reasons, but grrrr.

❧ There were so freaking many discussions brought up in the narrative of this book that it had an impressive depth, despite all the action and drama.

I expected there to be the normal zombie themes, of course, of survival and what it takes to survive, but I was pleasantly surprised that there was so much more than that going on. It had a little bit of everything.

It touched on:
✿ Survivor’s guilt
✿ Race relations
✿ Gender relations
✿ What it takes to survive
✿ Ethics and morality
✿ Redemption (and whether it’s possible)
✿ Machiavellian principles of the greater good
✿ Being true to who you are

And so much more, but I don’t want to say too much because some things might be spoilers. Wink, wink. There was so much packed into the story without feeling the least bit preachy, but I don’t think any character came through it unscathed or unchanged, and I appreciated that.

❧ This is pretty nitpicky, but I felt there were some things that weren’t fully concluded.

Maybe we don’t need answers. Maybe this book was supposed to be enough. Maybe there’ll be a third one?! (Please let there be a third one!). Still, there were certain characters whose arcs just felt incomplete, and I wish I knew what was going to happen to them. This isn’t really the story’s fault. I’m just a curious bookwyrm who grew a little too attached to these characters and wanted to make sure all the cute little cinnamon rolls were cared for.

Have you read Dread Nation yet? What are you waiting for?! Tell me a little about your zombie plan.

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