All the Pretty Little Horses by Mira Grant

All the Pretty Little Horses by Mira Grant

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


The series main character's adoptive parents take center stage in this series prequel. The year is 2018, while the main series starts off in the year 2039. The 'uprising' or 'zombification' occurred in 2016, so this is two years after the start of the zombie uprising.

This is an interesting enough story but not as riveting as prior short story additions to the series. Part of my problem is the part wherein the story is from Michael Mason's point of view and his constant thinking to himself about 'my god, my wife is so beautiful' over and over and overfuckingoverandfucking over again was fucking driving me up the fucking blood coated wall. WE FUCKING GET IT!!!!!

The story follows Stacey and Michael Mason weeks after Stacey was cleared for the killing, by Stacey, of Phillip Mason - their child. That, which was seen as murder in Stacey's eyes, event took place right at the start of the zombification, but Stacey held things together with Michael and the two had held a portion of Berkeley together during the uprising, and helped many outside their reach by way of the radio program Michael conducted that included survival snippets from his wife (it was never clear if Michael just faked Stacey's input or actually asked her to add some stuff).

The government has returned, though, and so Stacey is allowed to think about what had happened - no longer has to hold herself together. Naturally she falls to pieces and hardly ever moves from the bed. Michael, meanwhile, alternates thinking thoughts like 'my wife is so beautiful' with thoughts about how he has to, somehow, shake Stacey 'free' of her PTSD.

Somewhere along the way Michael gets Stacey barely moving. Which leads to an encounter with another surviver - who gushes about Stacey's tips. Which leads to Stacey actually perking up a little and acting alive. Which leads to Michael noticing and realizing that there might be some way to jump-start some kind of recovery. So he starts a blog, or joins a blog that part is confusing, and he and Stacey wander around taking pictures and writing stories about various locations, like a zoo, and a nearby city, and two different adoption centers.

Then, while Stacey is still deep deep into PTSD land and barely functioning, the two adopt two children.

The end.

That's the entirety of the story.

Rating: 3.89

December 13 2017



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