The Fearless

 

I really liked this twist...the Fearless are zombieish but not really zombies.  In this book a treatment has been created to treat PTSD.  The problem is that it turns the soldiers into people who fear nothing at all and who turn violent.  In addition, the creators of the treatment decide to sell it to some bad people (I thought that part was a bit unclear).  Now the Fearless are taking over.  They alter other people with the injection.

The book starts with a lot of death and destruction right away.  Cass' family is offered a place on an island to be safe but on the way there Cass' dad is altered, the man who owns the island loses his wife, and Cass' mom goes into labor.  

Then we skip forward in time.  Cass is still on the island learning to be a protector, Sol her best friend from childhood wants her to marry him, he mom committed suicide, and she takes care of her brother.  Then a stranger appears on the island and Cass falls for him hard.  Problem is - he has a sister who has been altered that he is trying to protect, this sister kidnaps Cass' brother, and the boy Myo is half Fearless himself.

Cass helps Myo escape the island and they go searching for her brother and his sister.  Along the way more death, desctruction, swearing, reveals, and twisted alliances.

Overall I liked the book.  I liked that there were groups that although they had good intentions on the surface they weren't so good underneath.  This makes the book more authentic.  It ended with a bit of a cliffhanger and yet written well enough that I didn't want to throw my Kindle in frustration.  If there is to be a sequel I would read it and hope they would explore the Magpies a bit more.  For my library and for MSBA is has too much swearing but I would recommend it to older students.