I won this book from a Goodreads Giveaway. The fact that it compared the story to the tv show The Last of Us, which I enjoyed, is what got me interested. I do enjoy a good zombie/post-apocalyptic story. This had a lot of really interesting aspects and unique details. The story is told through the POV of both Mara and Rory. Mara was infected with the Tick, or the virus that created the zombies. But somehow the scientists have found a type of drug that can help the Ticks become human, mostly, again. Mara is one of them, and is being sent to live with her godparents. Her own parents are dead, she killed them. She has an older sister, but she won’t take her. Mara’s godparents are Rory’s parents. But Rory has been dealing with living through this new world. She’s felt like her parents didn’t take care of her at times and she now calls them by their first names. She lost one of her younger sisters to the Ticks, and then had to kill her sister herself to keep her from turning.

Mara and Rory had been best friends, maybe more, before all this happened. So the two of them are learning whether any of that friendship or more is still there. But of course you know in a world like this the guys running the towns aren’t always as good of guys as you think there are. And there are also all the people who don’t trust that this medication will actually help the Ticks, or even if it does, they still think they all deserve to die because they killed people before. Also Mara’s older sister wants her dead too.

Seeing the way the world had changed was interesting and I liked both the things that reminded me of favorite shows and movies, as well as the newer takes on things the author had. I liked the characters’ growth and how they came to figure things out. There was also a unique change in what happened when the medicine wasn’t given for several days, and how different zombie/ticks reacted to not having it. Definitely a good read!