Carrie Ryan and Lorelei Gilmore.

I love zombie novels.  I love them in pretty much any flavor, though all my true favorites involve the CDC and/or sinister government plot.

I like to think I loved zombie novels before it was trendy to love them.   I'm fascinated by the idea that zombies are the next thing after vampires to reflect social dread, that what was once scary was blood, and now what is scary is death, or becoming unpretty, or aging, or being powerless.  I'm certain there's all sorts of academic papers about what the shift in focus means, if it's a general aging of the world, or something about helplessness.  

It doesn't really matter when I got on board, I'm going to keep devouring the novels as long as it keeps me happy, and mull over the implications of young adult novels with protagonists who are the one bright spot of color, individuality, or fighting a system or systems.

Carrie Ryan's titles are, for lack of a better world, spectacular.  The Forest of Hands and Teeth, The Dead-Tossed Waves and The Dark and Hollow Places.   I'm a sucker for them.   But, being young adult novels, they're also full of teenagers being in love, and being dreadful people because of it.   In a very age-appropriate way, and I'm certain 16 year old Kim wouldn't have dealt well with the prospect of having to choose between her one true love and the greater good.

We're watching Gilmore Girls while I'm in recovering, and we just finished season one, which includes a speech by Lorelei's father about sacrificing what one wants to do what is right.   In the show, that sentiment made me (as it was supposed to) angry and grrr.   Of course you don't marry someone because it is the right thing to do.  But as various Ryan characters bemoan loves that can never be, or how they awakened entire zombie hordes to save one person, I hand-wave and get annoyed that they don't seem to be grasping the concept of not being the most special snowflake.