Customer Reviews

The Reapers Are the Angels: A Novel

5 star:		(71)
4 star:		(34)
3 star:		(8)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Well, this wasn't what I expected at all.

Having last entered the world of zombies in The Forest of Hands and Teeth, given the age of the protagonist (15) and the rather skimpy information on the review copy, I guess was expecting another young adult "message" horror novel. I like that kind of thing, so why not?

I was not expecting this work of art that caught me up and shook me and broke my heart because it is both so beautiful and so sad. Zombies: the new face of magic realism. Who knew?

The language is flawless. It is unobtrusive, but lush and almost lyrical. The pacing, too, flawless. Not a passage drags, nothing wasted. The characters are strong and believable; their motivations make sense; their voices are clear and distinct.

I will not kid you. This book is intense. Temple may be 15, but the life she lives is very adult, and the situations she encounters are gut-wrenching. The book made me cry, more than once; it isn't going to be a good fit for everyone. It's a pretty grim world, and an unflinchingly violent one, but in spite of the monsters it's *not* a conventional horror story. If you come for catharsis, you'll get it, but maybe not the kind you expect. This isn't spine tingling; it's soul twisting. I won't be surprised if reviews are highly divided; those who are looking for conventional horror or are even further afield as I was may not be universally pleased. This is a great book - a masterpiece, maybe - for the *right* reader.

The book left me thoughtful and sad and grateful for what I have. Grateful, too, to have read it. I'm still caught up in the aftermath, having finished it moments before I started writing the review, so it's really too soon to say--but I *think* I may have just found a contender for my shortlist of "favorite books."

I'm having serious difficulty reviewing this book. I liked it. And I'm not sure why. The central conflict strains credulity (even in a book about zombies), it's a bit episodic, and nothing (even why the zombies exist) is explained. This is not a sloppy author and he clearly had backstory in mind to explain these happenings. I just wish he'd shared it with us. There's a distinct emphasis on fatalism or deism (I'm not sure which was intended), so the omission may be deliberate. It could also be the result of over-editing, since the book is intended for cross-marketing to young adults although it's clearly the work of a mature and accomplished author accustomed to writing for adults.

The writing occasionally reminds me of those impossible half-page Henry James sentences. A sample: "Even the imprisoned slugs themselves have paused in their perpetual movement to gaze with acquiescent eyes upon the scene of the massacre, as though in harmony with the inexorable and silent melodies of grim decease - as though in deferential recognition of the community of the extinct."

Having said that, there are moments of description worthy of Thomas Hardy. The pace is brisk and the tension between the protagonist's situation and her normal, teenage-girl reactions to everything from a swarm of fish to candy-pink nail polish make her character truly able to sustain the story. In fact, most of the characters are lovingly detailed, even the incidental ones. Part of the book's appeal is seeing how the girl's very distinctive yet incompletely formed character interacts with and is shaped by her random interactions with various, very relatable personalities.

I came away thinking this was probably not the best work of an extremely intelligent and talented author whom I definitely want to read again.

Alden Bell's The Reapers are The Angels is the perfect combination of Charles Portis' True Grit and the classic zombie flick Night of the Living Dead. If you are a fan of the highest quality literature, thought provoking themes and the supernatural than there is nothing lacking in this book. I often pick up a book, hoping for something new, something unexpected, only to be disappointed with another piece of drivel. Now don't get me wrong I'm not above drivel *cough*Twilight*cough* but the quest for quality adult literature is an ongoing one. In fact, I often feel like Don Quixote himself, always trying but never succeeding. For once my high hopes were rewarded with a thoroughly enjoyable and at times profoundly disturbing story.

Reapers follows a young girl named Temple who has learned that not only isn't it safe to live in the world because of the "meateaters" but sometimes because the other surviving humans are the worst monsters of all. At the beginning of the book she is living alone on an isolated island, sleeping in an abandoned lighthouse and fishing for food. We are immediately given the sense of desolation that she feels, her language is unsophisticated and she is harder than anyone should have to become. But Temple was born into this world of horror and death, this is where she belongs and the only thing she knows. In the manner of a true survivor she can find beauty in the simple things around her and even in the very monsters that threaten her life.

Bell tells a simple tale. A girl is forced to leave her island and travels with the dream of someday seeing Niagara Falls Along the way she meets many different kinds of people and monsters, until in the end she must face what it ultimately means to be human. In Moses Todd Temple finds her counter part: a man as hard on the outside as she is on the inside. Their stories are intertwined and the relationship between them is romantic without any of the complications of sex. Perhaps romantic is the wrong word, what they feel is more like the mutual respect of an honorable enemy or perhaps a brother. There are no shocking twists or sudden revelations. There is no deep mystery. What there is, however; is a story so eloquently written, full of so much truth, that you almost expect to walk outside and see "slugs" slowly lumbering toward you.

So what does it mean to be human? When we look at our lives what separates us from the "meatskins" who go about their days simply reacting and moving on instinct? Are we only surviving or is there something more to being human, something beyond eating, breathing, working, plodding through life. For Temple there is. There is something sacred and precious about life; there is a plan and God has seen to it that we're all in the place we're supposed to be. Even id we don't understand God is a "slick" God and he knows what he's doing. Temple has seen the very worst of what people are but she has also seen the beauty of miracles.

Temple is a difficult character to relate to. She's tough and hard. She handles herself in a way I'd like to think I would should zombies take over the planet. She kills with precision, both zombie and human when necessary. But she is broken. The world that she lives in is a terrible place and it has been her mother, father and mentor through life. She knows nothing else. Responsibility and honor guide her through a world with no rules. The small havens of normalcy she finds feel as alien to her as the outside world of Reapers would appear to us; she will never belong there, but there is nothing in the world that matters more to her than the safety of those who do.

The Reapers are The Angels is a mature book, the violence and gore are intense and the lessons in it are hard learned. It's the moral though; that I think takes an adult mind to truly grasp. Concepts of sacrifice, family, and morality are rarely conveyed as profoundly as they are in Reapers. Bell has managed to give us the perfect Anti-Heroine in a world without heroes in a time without hope. Temple takes us on a journey through the worst parts of human nature only to show us that in the end, all that matters is what you hold inside of you.

There is so much to this novel that it becomes hard to classify it. It is not pure Horror, pure Thriller or pure Fiction. What it is is absurdly a literary piece of work about an apocalyptic world run by zombies. It is dark, dreary and we never get fully explained to us how things got this way. And we are given a main character at the mere age of 15. And it is through this character, Temple, that the novel comes to life. Through her the novel has a purpose and the moral decisions and actions she must take provide the heart and emotion of this novel. The zombies, meatskins, are well described but are not the main characters here. They are a part of the apocalyptic world. The novel is often dark, often dreary and often difficult to read but the reader is in good hands with author Alden bell. When you know you can trust an author the reader can let go and be guided. Bell writes a novel where everything happens for a reason even if it may not make sense at the time. Only an author this skilled can make such a world like this real and believable. Let Bell ansd Temple guide you on a journey you will not soon forget.

I think I just finished one of the best books I've ever read. How did you do that, Alden Bell? How did you do it in a zombie novel?

I picked this up on a lark while I was at the book store getting something else, and saw the word "beautiful" applied to a zombie novel. That I HAD to see. Well, it's true. Somehow. I finished it a day ago and I'm still not entirely sure what just happened to me, because I did not expect it at all.

If you're reading the reviews here and haven't bought the book yet, do it.

I just finished reading probably a couple of dozens of the book's reviews and feel like there is hardly anything left to add. Except maybe that "The Reapers Are the Angels" is one of the very few zombie books I have ever finished and pretty much the only zombie book that I finished with pleasure and emotional involvement. Most likely because this novel isn't really about zombies. It is about us, people, whose conscience (and not external circumstances) often is our most dangerous and relentless enemy.

In "The Road"-like fashion (I have to say, Alden Bell was undoubtedly very heavily and obviously inspired by Cormac McCarthy's works), the post-apocalyptic setting is nothing but a backdrop for exploring the matters of human soul. Bell doesn't dwell on detailing his world, and correctly so. Some authors (Lauren DeStefano in "Wither," for instance) make a mistake of over-explaining things when they don't need to. And Bell doesn't need to tell us how this zombie business works. Because for his main character, 15-year old Temple, zombies are the least of her problems. For Temple, they are a part of the natural environment, like, let's say, animals. Survival in this infested world is easy, dealing with what is inside her mind and heart - guilt, doubt, loneliness - that is hard.

Others have already said it, Temple is the one who carries this novel. She is a remarkably well realized character. She is self-sufficient, strong, capable, caring, and honorable, but with a gaping hole in her soul. I dare you not to empathize with her and her search for self-forgiveness and sense of belonging. Does she find it? I wished for a different ending, I won't lie.

I first learned about this book at the Philip K. Dick awards. It was nominated this year and they read a part of it. I really liked what I heard.

Reapers is a an amazing zombie story, filled with gruesome scenes and blood squirting gore. But more than anything the best thing about Reapers is the deep emotional connection that the writer creates to the protagonist. The writing is superb and I loved it, despite the fact that the novel is written in present tense. I normally run shrieking away from all present tense novels, and this one is the first one that I have ever liked. I think that is due to the incredible skill of writer, Alden Bell.

It's a story about a girl named Temple who has grown up in this zombie post apocalypse world, where the slugs and mutants rule, and humanity is a scrabbling minority barely surviving and struggling to take back their world. Temple has survived on her own so long that she doesn't trust too many people, and although life has made her tough and hard, she finds it difficult to shirk responsibility for others. She thinks of herself as evil because of the things she's had to do, but really she is better than most of her fellow human beings who instead of banding together, in a lot of cases are turning on themselves.

I loved this book, but I ran into some plot choices that I personally do not enjoy. I can't go into the details without spoiling the book. I still like it despite those choices, and recommend it to anyone who likes zombie stories or scifi. It is zombie genre evolved and grown up. A serious book about what makes people tick inside.

...this would be it. That is my no. 1 compliment and also chief criticism of this entertaining page turner. I enjoyed this book waaaaay more than I did Cronin's The Passage. If you have read McCarthy and enjoy his style (as I very much do), and if you are a fan of the zombie genre (as I very much am), then you couldn't ask for a better book than this. Everyone sounds like they're talking in an old western, which worked for me. I don't know what Bell has planned next, but I'd like to see him try his hand at a noir novel--he's got the style and can spin a yarn. Well done!

This is a zombie novel, but it's not your run-of-the-mill gorefest. That's not to say it isn't violent and gory and probably everything you'd still expect from a zombie novel, but not senselessly so. Instead it stands as one of the most beautiful uses of the English language I've ever read, with a story that's something like Of Mice and Men or Huckleberry Finn, just with a zombie plot. Temple even uses the pseudonym Sarah Mary Williams around strangers, which is most of the time, and ends up with an adult, Maury, for a traveling partner.

I wish I'd marked my favorite passages to turn back to, but here are a few examples of the writing nonetheless:

"In the distance there is sometimes the faint glimmer of firelight, dim and implacable. Wilson claims these are mirages, nocturnal illusions that would recede forever if you tried to pursue them. Like the shimmering sylphs of old that led travelers over precipices or into mazy, unending caverns. Not all the magic of the earth is benevolent."

"...God is a slick god, and he knows things about infinities. Infinities are warm places that never end. And they aren't about good and evil, they're just peaceful-like and calm, and they're where all travelers go eventually, and they are round everywhere you look because you can't have any edges in infinities."

"...there were blueprints on the walls, covering all the walls, that blue not quite like any other blue she had ever seen. She tells of how magical they were, those white lines like chalk fibers against that blue, the figures and numbers and arrows like the very nomenclature of man's grandeur, the objects they described like artifacts lost and gone and hinted at in undecipherable etchings for future races smarter than herself to puzzle over. And they were a wonder, those mortal imaginations splayed wide on paper, testaments to vision far beyond her own weary head, testimonials to the faith in the power of human ingenuity to shape something out of nothing..."

Temple herself is a wonderful character, a forced-to-grow-up-too-quickly teenager with an easy, unassuming confidence that shows she can take care of herself and do what needs to be done without being the least bit cocky. But she's also pained by the demons and memories of everything that's happened to her, and though she never seems to do anything out of malice, the only thing she ever questions is whether or not her soul is redemptible after surviving so many now-commonplace horrors... the blame for which she often places on herself, but without an ounce of self-pity.

I don't want to quite give it 5, only because I don't like the cliche of the "hill people" becoming the worst, inbred monsters of all; but other than that, I can't think of a single complaint, and it still gets the honor of being one of the best books that I've read this year.

It is a bleak and desolate world, with pockets of humanity scattered around the country. The world is inhabited by both humans and zombies (referred to in the book as "meatskins" or "slugs"), although these zombies really aren't quite as terrifying as in most zombie stories. They're sorta slow and meandering, and relatively easy to defeat. I'm really surprised at how many people get killed or attacked by them and how feared they are, all things considered!

In this desolate world, it is the humans that are far more dangerous than the zombie population. And alone in this world is a young, tenacious fifteen-year-old girl, being chased by her own demons.

I love Temple. She's haunting, but strong and courageous and smart and sympathetic. There is really something of a kinship between her and the character of Moses Todd. They really "get" one another. It's as if they are playing by the same rules in the same game, while everyone else in the world is playing by a different set of rules. The two of them are the reapers in a world of saints and sinners , and Temple is a little uncomfortable with her role in this world.

I also love the cover of this book! It transfixes me everytime my eyes fall on it.

Oh, please someone make this into a movie! What a fun movie this could be! I can see the scenes playing out in my head. However I also have a bit of an alternate ending playing out in my head as well.

There is definitely some "suspension of disbelief" required, beyond that required for a basic zombie/post-apocalyptic story. For instance, the fact that this is supposed to be something like 25 years after zombies appeared on the scene and the breakdown of government and society and life as it was known, and yet there is still gas available in working gas stations, and the gas hasn't gone bad after sitting for decades. Shoot! The gas can go bad in a weed-eater or lawn mower after just sitting for one season!

I really enjoyed this story! If you like post-apocalyptic, give this one a tumble. It's a quick and easy read, very well-written, with some fun, rip-roaring moments. I look forward to more from Alden Bell!