Dread Nation

 Dread Nation by Justina Ireland, 455 pages.

A monster book for October! In this alternate history novel the civil war took a different turn when the dead started to rise at Gettysburg, and a truce was promptly called to fight the zombies instead of each other. Now, about fifteen years later, the shamblers have largely become a (still very dangerous) part of life. And thanks to the Native and Negro Reeducation Act people from those two groups are now taken away from home as teenagers to learn to fight the zombies, which is societally viewed as good for both them and the country.

Jane McKeene attends Miss Preston's School of Combat in Baltimore, an elite school that specializes in training attendants, which are somewhere between lady's maids and bodyguards. However, when she starts snooping she quickly finds that things aren't what they seem in Baltimore, and are even worse elsewhere.

This was a really interesting premise. I really enjoyed how much Ireland explored how the world is both different and the same. For example, Mark Twain still exists, and still wrote Tom Sawyer, but now Tom is constantly running into problems with shamblers. Overall, this book has good attention to detail and some pretty engaging character, and the premise itself is pretty interesting. There's a plot twist or two that feels a little contrived for drama, but overall I am still excited to read the sequel!