Mateo’s life is turned upside down the day U.S. This grittily provocative debut explores the horrors of self-harm and the healing power of artistic expression.Ī Mexican American boy takes on heavy responsibilities when his family is torn apart. Like most issue books, this is not an easy read, but it's poignant and transcendent as Charlie breaks more and more before piecing herself back together. Through intense, diarylike chapters chronicling Charlie's journey, the author captures the brutal and heartbreaking way 'girls who write their pain on their bodies' scar and mar themselves, either succumbing or surviving. Feeling rejected, Charlie, an artist, is drawn into a destructive new relationship with her sexy older co-worker, a 'semifamous' local musician who's obviously a junkie alcoholic. But things don't go as planned in the Arizona desert, because sweet Mikey just wants to be friends. After spending time in treatment with other young women like her-who cut, burn, poke, and otherwise hurt themselves-Charlie is released and takes a bus from the Twin Cities to Tucson to be closer to Mikey, a boy she 'like-likes' but who had pined for Ellis instead. Seventeen-year-old Charlie Davis, a white girl living on the margins, thinks she has little reason to live: her father drowned himself her bereft and abusive mother kicked her out her best friend, Ellis, is nearly brain dead after cutting too deeply and she's gone through unspeakable experiences living on the street. With a shrewd, scythe-wielding protagonist of color, Dread Nation is an exciting must-read.Īfter surviving a suicide attempt, a fragile teen isn't sure she can endure without cutting herself. It’s no coincidence that the novel will prompt readers to make connections with today’s racial climate. All the classic elements of the zombie novel are present, but Ireland ( Promise of Shadows, 2014, etc.) takes the genre up a notch with her deft exploration of racial oppression in this alternative Reconstruction-era America. Sinister secrets lurk beneath the surface there, and the more Jane discovers, the more determined she is to escape, especially as the shamblers keep multiplying. However, her plan is thwarted when she and her friends run afoul of a corrupt mayor and are sent to a Western outpost called Summerland. She’s fierce with a scythe but longs to find her way home to her mother. Jane McKeene, a black teen born to a white mother, is nearly finished with her training. Now the dangerous task of killing these shamblers rests on black people and Native Americans taken from their homes and forced into combat training schools at a young age. The Civil War is over, but mostly because the dead rose at Gettysburg-and then started rising everywhere else.

Fighting the undead is a breeze for Jane, but the fight for freedom? That’s a different story.

Dread nation