The Human Wilderness

REVIEW
As I said at the end of my review for Among The Monsters, I picked this book up and read a couple of chapters straightaway. The prequel had certainly pulled me into the book setting and made me want to read more about it's characters.

I think the cover of this book is really good how it is showing "sides" for the characters contained in the book. On one side or above there are some survivors within the wilderness in silhouette. One of the silhouette's is a woman, the others I'd say (after reading the book) are male. In fact I think the humans on the cover are Eli, Frank and Jane as they do go on a "missions" together in the book, outside the safety of their settlement. Below are silhouettes of broken, deformed humans that have become infected and transformed into parasites.
In my opinion the prequel book cover and the cover for this book fit well and certainly gel together as a series.

The byline/beginning of the blurb really sums up the society we are about to read about in a few sentences. "It's a dangerous world. No laws. Few People. Herds of the infected. Among them; one missing child and one man who'll do anything to rescue her". It really is a fantastic description in a nutshell of the book.

As this book is part of a series, of course it is labelled similarly to Among The Monsters, as Horror and Zombies on Goodreads. However I would add this book/series to the following genres, Post apocalyptic, and Dystopian.

As I've said it was quite late at night when I finished the prequel but couldn't resist starting this one. Originally my intention was to read one chapter. . . I ended up reading two!
I did find this book a slightly slower read to get into to and was initially really disappointed that it didn't pick up where the prequel ended, or follow the main characters featured in Among The Monsters. I do feel that the prequel set the scene and background for the rest of this series, but there was the niggle I wanted to know what had happened to Rebecca, where Martha had taken her.

The first characters we meet in The Human Wilderness are Eli Stenz and Squirrel (Allen James Twoomie) both are residents in a settlement called rather ironically "Hope". Eli and Squirrel are out hunting for meat for the other people in Hope. Everyone that lives in Hope has a job to do, Eli's and Squirrel's jobs are to hunt for food and to kill parasites if they see them too. They usually keep fairly close together as two sets of eyes and ears are better than one for hearing any approaching parasites. As one bite or scratch from a parasite is enough for you to become infected and turn into a parasite yourself. This is also the reason both men have every inch of their skin covered with thick material or leather strapping to protect their skin from coming into contact with anything infected. Strangely as Eli is checking out the deer they have killed for the 6 year anniversary celebration of Hope being created but Squirrel seems to have disappeared. The men meet back up but before they can quickly retreat to Hope, unfortunately Squirrel ends up being caught by the parasites, Eli is close by and attempts to kill the parasite before it bites Squirrel but he is a second too late. Now Eli faces returning to Hope, having to tell Squirrels family and the other residents what happened, that though no one from Hope has been infected for two years, Squirrel has and is dead! People are busy with preparations for the anniversary celebration, and don't take the news very well. In fact some of the residents of Hope blame Eli. They were already wary of him as compared to everyone else as Eli is still considered a newcomer. As Eli is a bit of a loner it gives people an excuse to think the worst of him and view him as an outsider. The people Eli does get along with are Jane, the Doctor who nursed him when he first arrived at Hope with numerous gun shot wounds. Eli also gets along well with Frank, his wife and their adopted family.
As the community is grieving, once again Eli feels guilty as though it should have been him scratched or bitten, not Squirrel aka Allen James Twoomie who has a wife Lauren and family. The community rally around Lauren but its clear to see that they wish the one infected and dead is Eli, the quiet loner who's past they don't know. Instead of an original founding resident of Hope, that Allen James Twoomie was.
Later in the book we learn that Franks adopted daughter Lily has disappeared. Naturally Franks first thought is to go after her and he asks for people to go with him. Sadly the community attitude is if Lily is on the outside of Hope's walls if she isn't dead already she will be soon! In the end it's Eli, Frank and the Doctor Jane that go in search of Lily. They come across parasites, and even survivors pretending to be parasites, trying to steal what little food and weapons they are carrying.

So we follow Eli, Frank and Jane as they try to follow the tracks left by Lily and whoever the larger footprints belong to. Lily is quite clever as she leaves strands from her friendship bracelet for her family to find and to help guide them to her.
We learn about Eli's dark and violent past. How he has killed when ordered to. Eli is determined to get Lily back even if it means allowing the inner monster that he has pushed deep inside himself to hide it, out once again. Eli is prepared to do whatever it takes. He has killed before and is willing to kill again if it means getting Lily back.

After a turbulent journey Eli finds out who Lily is being taken to, a woman called Olive who lives in Grants Hill. However Olive is only collecting the girls and supposedly keeping them safe for "the saviour". By this time in his arduous journey, and having a little more insight into what the girls are being used for by Olive and her army of men, Eli is determined to save all the girls or as many as possible.

The Saviour turns out to be a face from the past that Eli would really rather have not seen ever again. The Saviour is from Eli's past when he killed to order with no question. Will the Saviour recognise Eli? and take this opportunity to have revenge?

There's so much happening in this book, it's action packed really. I found this book to be a fast read. Seriously I read this one late into the night, I didn't want to put it down. I still have questions from this book about exactly what the Saviour intends to do with the girls as it certainly seem it isn't the same as what Olive has used them for. I am also looking forward to delving even more into Eli's history. I hope the next book tells more of the girls stories and we catch up with the girls we met in the prequel. Other things I'd be interested in knowing are related to the the questions the characters ask each other about the parasites. I'd like discover if parasites have any senses left such as smell and touch? Do they remember who they were before? Do they have emotions? Do they feel pain? etc

My immediate final thoughts upon finishing this book were that this book was a great dystopian/post apocalyptic and I am already looking forward to reading bk2 when it's available.