Opinions of a Wolf

Summary:
Lilly Caul’s father shoved her into a bus escaping town just as the doors were closing. They closed on him and zombies ate him while she watched.  Haunted by the feeling that everyone caring for her puts their own lives in danger, she’s struggling to survive among a rag-tag group of survivors, including her high school friend, Megan.  Slowly her small group of friendly survivors, headed by a big strong black man, Josh Lee, who has feelings for her, breaks off from the main group and find their way to Woodbury.  There, the sinister side of the town gradually reveals itself.

Review:
My understanding of this print companion series to the graphic novel one was that it was going to follow the life of the villain The Governor.  The first book told the backstory of The Governor and brought him to Woodbury, so I was expecting a book showing how he came to rule the town with an iron fist.  Instead this entry covers the backstory of Lilly Caul, and how she comes to Woodbury.  Although it’s always fun to visit this post-apocalyptic land that Kirman and Bonansinga have created, this entry just didn’t have the energy and appeal of the first book in the series.

I have to admit, although I recognized the name Lilly Caul, I couldn’t for the life of me remember who she was at first, so I spent quite a bit of time scratching my brain trying to figure out why we were following her around.  I finally remembered that she’s one of the gang of Woodbury folks who go head-to-head with Rick Grimes’s gang in the graphic novels.  A check of the wiki reminded me that she’s the one who shoots and kills Lori and Judith.  Eh, this explains why I have no strong feelings about her.  I hated Lori and felt nothing about Judith, so I certainly didn’t view her as a memorable villain.  I now get it that the series is trying to show how all of Woodbury happened, not just the tale of The Governor.  But the thing is that if you could tell the story of a compelling figure like The Governor why talk about the girl next door?  It made for a boring book.  There is nothing extraordinary about Lilly.  She’s just a cowardly girl trying to survive an apocalypse, and she does it by leeching on to people who care for her but she seems to be lacking the ability to truly care about anyone besides herself.  She also spends a lot of time slut shaming her “best friend” Megan, which pissed me off to no end.  So we have a woman playing with people’s hearts for protection but simultaneously judging Megan for sleeping with people for protection.  Yuck.  Given all of these aspects of her character, I also found it really unbelievable  that she would *spoiler warning* lead a rebellion against The Governor. *end spoilers*

When we finally do get to Woodbury, The Governor is already in charge, although he has yet to call himself The Governor.  We do get to see what led to the establishment of the gladiator-style arena with the zombies, and we also see more reasons as to why the town folk trust and respect him.  But we see all of this through Lilly, Megan, and Bob’s eyes.  I honestly wanted to know more of the inner workings of The Governor, so I found this third person perspective disappointing.

There’s nothing new or ground-breaking in the horror.  There is one massive swarm of zombies that is clearly supposed to be terrifying, but it did nothing for me.  Maybe I’m just getting acclimated to this world, but neither the characters nor the level of horror increased the intensity enough for me.

That said, even though I didn’t enjoy which characters were focused on or how the plot was constructed, we do learn more about the world of Woodbury, and the post-apocalyptic world in general.  We learn how and why the gladiator ring started, how The Governor won people over, and more about how the weather impacted the survivors on that particular winter.  Long-time fans will find value in reading this book, even though it is by no means a thrilling or thought-provoking entry in the series.  Skim it quickly to get the important bits and move on.  For that reason, I would recommend the print over the audio, in spite of Berman’s talent as a narrator.  He was better than the book he was given.

3 out of 5 stars

Source:  Audible

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Previous Books in Series
The Walking Dead: Rise of the Governor, review