At once provocative, terrifying, and darkly subversive, Dread Nation is Justina Ireland's stunning vision of an America both foreign and familiar—a country on the brink, at the explosive crossroads where race, humanity, and survival meet.
Jane McKeene was born two days before the dead began to walk the battlefields of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania—derailing the War Between the States and changing the nation forever.
In this new America, safety for all depends on the work of a few, and laws like the Native and Negro Education Act require certain children attend combat schools to learn to put down the dead.
But there are also opportunities—and Jane is studying to become an Attendant, trained in both weaponry and etiquette to protect the well-to-do. It's a chance for a better life for Negro girls like Jane. After all, not even being the daughter of a wealthy white Southern woman could save her from society's expectations.
But that's not a life Jane wants. Almost finished with her education at Miss Preston's School of Combat in Baltimore, Jane is set on returning to her Kentucky home and doesn't pay much mind to the politics of the eastern cities, with their talk of returning America to the glory of its days before the dead rose.
But when families around Baltimore County begin to go missing, Jane is caught in the middle of a conspiracy, one that finds her in a desperate fight for her life against some powerful enemies.
And the restless dead, it would seem, are the least of her problems.
My Review:
I loved reading this book. I've loved Justina Ireland's writing since her first book, and I don't know why it took me this long to read this book, after all, I got an ARC of it, and it's been out for over 2 years now. But now the sequel is out, so I'll be reading that shortly. And it's fitting to read this now, given the recent, well deserved, surge in the BLM movement.
Jane is a fantastic character. She's smart, she's a great actor, and the lies that she was able to tell with that combination! Almost all we knew about, but there was one that she kept from us until the end, and yeah, that was unexpected. Well, it was a bit of a two parter, and yeah, it added so much to the story!
I just recently learned, because of what's going on right now, how the prison system in the US was developed to basically make slavery legal. That they would arrest Black people for minor crimes, and have them labor. Well, there's a version of this in the book, where if a Black person was bitten, or accused of being bitten, then they weren't considered humans, so they didn't have any rights. In addition to the whole criminal thing. And it's just horrifying, that something this horrible in fiction is based off of something that actually happened in real life.
Man, just the unfairness of it all! I mean, once they go west to Summerland, well, why don't they run away? That would've been so much better that working in that town. They never even thought about it. And then Jane and Katherine get sucked into the mysteries of Summerland, and action happened. Yeah, that ending! I can't wait to see how things go from here!
Loved this book so much, and I can't wait to read Deathless Divide!
Author: Justina Ireland
Series: Dread Nation #1
Read: June 28th, 2020
Source: Edelweiss
Reason Why: Love her writing! And it's a Historical Fiction 2020 Book, Prequel & Sequel Challenge 2020 Book and WoW Book!
Publisher: Balzer + Bray
Published: April 3rd 2018
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| 5/5 Hearts |
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| 5/5 Books |
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| 5/5 Stars |
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