Contagious (The Contagium Series) [Kindle Edition]

Emily Goodwin (Author)

Book Description

"I wasn’t afraid of death. If I died, it would be over. My worst fear wasn’t of dying, it was of living. Living, while everyone around me had their flesh savagely torn from their bodies to be shoved into the festering and ever-hungry mouths of zombies. It terrified me, right down to my very core, to be alive while the rest of the world was dead."

In the midst of the Second Great Depression, twenty-five year old Orissa Penwell doesn't think things can get any worse. She couldn't be more wrong. A virus breaks out across the country, leaving the infected crazed, aggressive and very hungry.

Orissa will do anything-no matter if it's right or wrong- to save the ones she loves. But when she discovers that most of the world is infected or dead, she must decided if those lives are worth saving at all.


**DEATHLY CONTAGIOUS coming June 2012**

Product Details

• File Size: 579 KB
• Print Length: 339 pages
• Page Numbers Source ISBN: 1478363975
• Simultaneous Device Usage: Unlimited
• Language: English
• ASIN: B006Z0LP8A
• Text-to-Speech: Enabled
• X-Ray: Enabled
• Lending: Not Enabled
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #169,832 Paid in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Paid in Kindle Store)

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

140 of 167 people found the following review helpful

2.0 out of 5 stars Horrible story that fails to make a lot of sense February 5, 2012

By Kelli

Format:Kindle Edition|Amazon Verified Purchase

There was nothing new or original in this story. Zombies attack. The main character's group joins up with a bunch of intellectually questionable gun toting military guys. All that occurs is they go out on missions for food and supplies. It was not well done or interesting.

The story centers on Orissa, the reject from the bad girls club. Orissa is a drunk, jobless college drop out who is living off her aunt. She is in charge; she will lie to get her own way. She is an unlikeable character, but she is the only one we are given to follow. If a guy had acted like her, he would have found his bags at the bottom of the driveway. Since Orissa is mentally disturbed and some others may be worried about being removed from the house, no one comments on her deserting her friends, putting others in danger due to her lies, and acting like everyone else is the weakest link. Oh, a couple express hurt feelings.

Most of the time, this story failed to make sense. Water was contaminated, and the infection spread from the west to the east. Were these traveling terrorists? Was it microbes on the prevailing winds? Aliens with a laser beam? The world may never know. (Water doesn't originate from one source. People drink from rivers, ponds, aquifers that all originate from different sources.)

Orissa kills a deer at grandpa's house. If it wasn't for Orissa's skills, there would be no food on the table, but prior to finding bambi, she had found grandpa's 9 cows still hanging out at the farm. But killing the deer is better than filet mignon as you really can't be heralded for your hunting skills if you just kill a docile cow.

They go on excursions hundreds of miles away to search for cows, supplies and survivors. Can we look nearby first?... Did a handful of people already cover the hundreds of square miles of surrounding area.

It is made clear that this is a military controlled facility. The military, the A group, is in charge and receive certain privileges over the commoners, whom are labeled as Bs and Cs. They are supposedly working in a military manner and should follow military protocols, which are actually common sense procedures.

Orissa and the other A1s, the cream of the military, need to stop going on excursions in only one operational vehicle in case of car failure or tire failure, specifically this was the cow and blood excursions. They need to discontinue the game of doing high speed hitting of zombies with their vehicles for the same reason. They collect points for what they hit. (Does someone believe that Triple A will come to their rescue?) They need to wear some PPE such as goggles, gloves, and masks to prevent exposure to blood borne pathogens when in close physical proximity.

If they can't drink the water, they all need to cease showering in it, especially with those open wounds. Orissa loves to save people through self-mutilation (once ok, three times is a lesson not learned). Can I suggest some cold packs, cooler, and a sealed bag of blood?

And stop going to the mall. Get to the wal-mart. Get an electric heater. Unplug the tv or dvd player. Plug in the heater. Stop whining about being cold. (The A1s have electricity in their rooms with tvs and dvd players.)

There were so many moments like this. While the dialogue is good and the story readable, the story has a multitude of gaping holes, which starts with the basis of the story.

I recommend passing on this book.

Now a review of the friends of the author. (Their initial comments were removed when I deleted my short review and rewrote it.) Minutes after posting the authors friends pounced on the initial review. One friend nicely explains I was "creepy" to check her past reviews another wrote that I was diminishing myself to even suggest that her only two book reviews, 5 star reviews of this authors two books, were done because she was a friend or relative of the authors. She also took the time to write a review for this author at barnes and noble.

After writing this, one of these frenzied friends accused me of slandering the author and doing wrong. One, I wrote two legitimate reviews. A bad review is not slander. I said zip about the author. Two, I'm allowed to write a bad review. Three, slander is spoken defamation.

Is it pertinent if more than 50% of the reviewers are friends of the author? It may be to the person purchasing the book if they are basing these purchases on the reviews of friends of the author.

PLEASE READ THE SPECIAL COMMENT WHICH WILL BE THE FIRST COMMENT Read more ›

13 of 15 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars I cross my heart I am NOT a friend of the author but still enjoyed this book... March 25, 2012

By Tracy

Format:Kindle Edition|Amazon Verified Purchase

This book was a solid effort that for the price of .99 is well worth the read. It's fun to read a zombie novel written by a woman with a female heroine that is far from perfect. Who says only nice girls can be leaders? Who would even expect/want a twenty-something, nice, city girl to be a leader in the event of a zombie apocolypse? Not me. I found the selfish, damaged, product-of-a divorced-family, party girl first introduced in this novel to be realistically self-absorbed enough to have it be her first priority to take some of the actions she did. The author develops Orissa's story as the book rolls out to explain how she evolved into the tough, young woman she has become. She's not always likeable, but it made sense to me.

I find it believable your average citizen would NOT know the exact reasons why a zombie epidemic occurs in the first place. Typically, the government is not forthcoming with facts at the start to contain and avoid panic. Typically, the few people surviving such a widespread, fast acting virus would be too busy running, or defending a hiding place, and just trying to stay alive to whip out the test tubes and worry about accuracy of facts. I found it refreshing a lot of those issues aren't addressed, or are vague.

Read this book for a zombie thrill with a main character that is flawed and sometimes exasperating, but also tough and determined. I don't think you'll be disappointed. And the ending hits you right between the eyes!

24 of 31 people found the following review helpful

1.0 out of 5 stars could not finish it May 7, 2012

By bootlover

Format:Kindle Edition|Amazon Verified Purchase

Since getting my Kindle I have devoured anything zombie. Not sure why, but I have been having a blast with this genre. I base a lot of my purchases on reviews and that's why I spent my .99 on this one. Something is really off here. It would be different if this book had maybe 5 reviews, but 43 4-5 star reviews is crazy. The spelling errors (which are quite a few) aside, it's just really bad writing. When you say you only have six shots left and then go on to shoot 20 of the undead I wanted to scream! I really pictured a 16 year old girl writing this and it just drove me crazy. Now I'm so afraid to put any stock in reviews. Thank God it was only 99 cents or I would have returned it.

21 of 28 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Needs a little polish February 19, 2012

By Dizzi

Format:Kindle Edition|Amazon Verified Purchase

I just finished this book. What a cliffhanger. I read this story in every available moment. It is exciting and keeps you on edge, although at some point you would think they would learn to not get caught off guard so much. I personally liked the character development and enjoy the strong bonds the characters have with one another. The only reason for 4 stars is the editing. There are not a ton of errors, but the ones there are left me actually trying to figure out the intent of the sentence or paragraph. This stops the flow of the story and is very frustrating. Overall I loved the story and immediately looked to see if there was a 2nd book. No 2nd book yet, SOB. All I can say is "more please, and soon!"

10 of 13 people found the following review helpful

1.0 out of 5 stars Just Awful August 16, 2012

By Ash

Format:Kindle Edition|Amazon Verified Purchase

Contagious was badly written in an extremely juvenile way. I did not read up on the author, but I'm willing to guess she's pretty young. This read like something a teenager would write for fun with her friends. You know, a group of teenagers is hanging out and one of them says "Hey, wouldn't it be cool if..." and then an entire novel is written, without any research being done and with little to no editing (based on all the spelling and punctuation errors just in the first chapter alone). I appreciate the effort and the solid idea but this author really needs to work on some things before publishing anymore books.

More About the Author

Emily Goodwin resides in Indiana, where she lives with her husband, many four legged children and their much loved German Shepherd named Vader. Accused of being a day dreamer, Emily began writing at an early age, making use of her active imagination. She has degrees in psychology and nursing, likes anything paranormal, 80's rock, and is an animal rights activist.

www.emily-goodwin.blogspot.com