Mitch never really wanted to be a parent after his trouble childhood, but his sister Violette simply dropped little Sophie in his lap and left with her band. He takes the responsibility seriously and doesn't tell any government entities to keep getting Violette's benefits. A year later, Lianna finally asks Mitch out and he has a very rare night without Sophie to go on a date. A neighbor acts as a last minute babysitter, but she's obviously drunk when he comes home. Mitch spends the night with Lianna and doesn't realize until the next day that Sophie died. This event happens to coincide with some dead children rising from the grave, which includes Sophie. She's changed, but he cares for her like the same girl. Most others fear the returned children, their deathly pallor, and strange powers.
Come to Dust is a different zombie story than most. It starts with Mitch (real name Michel), who is an ex-con getting his life back together. He spent years in jail figuring out how to better cope with his anger. I enjoyed reading from his perspective because he was genuinely happy taking care of Sophie even though he wouldn't have chosen that path. He also has perfectly natural thoughts like thinking daycare worker Khadija looks like a model or Liana wears too much makeup, but then he follows up those thoughts with realizations like Khadija wears a hijab to be modest and Liana can wear as much makeup as she likes. Mitch is also good at sizing people up and assessing how dangerous they really are from a guy who wants to talk a big game but won't follow through to another who would shoot someone out of fear. Outwardly, his demeanor is a bit awkward, nervous, and fairly passive but still charming. Sophie's death breaks him because she was his fresh start and gave him motivation to move forward. They didn't have a lot of money or anything, but they had each other. I found him sympathetic and a good vehicle for the story.
This zombie book that many (especially parents) might find it hard to read. Child death in fiction holds a taboo more than any other type because they are the most vulnerable and innocent of humanity and in our lives. When four year old Sophie is found dead, the discovery is harrowing. The culprits leave town and lie through their teeth when found. Mitch's life falls apart around him from losing his job due to absence to losing all of Violette's government assistance. His whole life melts around him, but he and Liana have grown to love and support each other. The grief is accurately portrayed with moments of happiness and then guilt at being happy along with the waxing and waning pain of loss. Liana herself is also a pretty awesome character. She is much more assertive and sure of herself. In their relationship, she is an equal partner, not someone to be commanded. When Sophie came back, Liana was understandably disturbed and uncomfortable, eventually deciding to end their relationship when Sophie steals some her lifeforce and ages her. Apparently, an alternate effect of that power is affection and love? I found it disturbing that the only main female character has her agency taken away from her and has her making decisions against her own interest to help the male protagonist.
These zombies are a bit different than usual. These are all children and their condition when they come back is how they looked in the grave. Sophie was not very decomposed, but she comes back with a deathly pale skin, grey hair, dark veins, a slowly beating heart, no appetite, a muted personality, and eyes with white cataracts. She's obviously not a living child and everyone who helped them before rejects them now from the day care to the library. Between forward moving chapters are vignettes of other resurrections such as three boys walking out of an apparent child murderer's porch. These gave me a chill down my spine and showed what is happening outside of Mitch's story. As the story moves forward, more zombie abilities are revealed. They can weaponize rot, which in turn rots themselves, and alternatively, they can consume other's lifeforce to make themselves appear more human. If they consume enough, no one would know the difference between them and another child in any way. The different zombie abilities are interesting and mostly make sense except for the forcing some sort of emotion (examples in the book include positive and negative). It just doesn't make sense to me and has problematic implications.
The real villains of this piece are a religious extremist group. They view these children as demons from hell, sent by the devil to destroy people. The group operates as a cult, taking in those down on their luck, changing their lives, and then forcing them to commit atrocities in god's name, including imprisoning or killing anyone that gets in their way and setting fire to returned children. Mitch gets all mixed up in this because his sister comes back born again with this cult and her equally trouble boyfriend to collect Sophie. When they find out Sophie returned, the boyfriend shoves them in his truck and forces them to go to the cult compound. Mitch and other parents forced there break out and attempt to rescue their children, resulting in cars crashed into buildings and many dead and injured. The church disgustingly spins it as violence against them and uses the widespread media coverage to their advantage while the actual good people have to stay silent or risk being painted as terrorists. This is particularly relevant now where people prop up their religious beliefs as reasons to justify hatred, bigotry, misogyny, homophobia, transphobia, assault, murder, and child molestation just to name a few and cry discrimination or intolerance the minute anyone is against them.
Come to Dust took me almost no time to read because I was so sucked into the story. The characters are all compelling in some way and the lore is unique compared the rest of the genre. There were also small Lovecraftian references like Miskatonic University and the city of Dunwich. I thought this might play into the story a bit more, but I think it was included just to add some little easter eggs. Overall, the book moves quickly, packs an emotional punch, and features relatable and realistic characters even if the ending stretches the logic of the world.
My rating: 4/5 fishmuffins
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