The Reapers Are the Angels: A Novel

By Alden Bell

Zombies have infested a fallen America. A young girl named Temple is on the run. Haunted by her past and pursued by a killer, Temple is surrounded by death and danger, hoping to be set free.

For twenty-five years, civilization has survived in meager enclaves, guarded against a plague of the dead. Temple wanders this blighted landscape, keeping to herself and keeping her demons inside her heart. She can't remember a time before the zombies, but she does remember an old man who took her in and the younger brother she cared for until the tragedy that set her on a personal journey toward redemption.

Moving back and forth between the insulated remnants of society and the brutal frontier beyond, Temple must decide where ultimately to make a home and find the salvation she seeks.

“Alden Bell provides an astonishing twist on the southern gothic: like Flannery O'Connor with zombies.” —Michael Gruber, New York Times bestselling author of The Book of Air and Shadows

• Language: English
• Publisher: Macmillan Publishers
• Release date: Aug 3, 2010
• ISBN: 9781429929677

Alden Bell

Alden Bell lives in New York. For the past nine years, he has taught high school English at an Upper East Side prep school. Since 2002, he has also taught literature and cultural studies courses as an adjunct professor at the New School. Prior to coming to New York, he grew up in the heart of Orange County: Anaheim, home of Disneyland. He graduated from Berkeley with a degree in English and a minor in creative writing. In 2000, he received his Master’s and Ph.D. in English at New York University, specializing in twentieth-century American and British literature.

Book preview

PART I

1.

God is a slick god. Temple knows. She knows because of all the crackerjack miracles still to be seen on this ruined globe.

Like those fish all disco-lit in the shallows. That was something, a marvel with no compare that she’s been witness to. It was deep night when she saw it, but the moon was so bright it cast hard shadows everywhere on the island. So bright it was almost brighter than daytime because she could see things clearer, as if the sun were criminal to the truth, as if her eyes were eyes of night. She left the lighthouse and went down to the beach to look at the moon pure and straight, and she stood in the shallows and let her feet sink into the sand as the patter-waves tickled her ankles. And that’s when she saw it, a school of tiny fish, all darting around like marbles in a chalk circle, and they were lit up electric, mostly silver but some gold and pink too. They came and danced around her ankles, and she could feel their little electric fish bodies, and it was like she was standing under the moon and in the moon at the same time. And that was something she hadn’t seen before. A decade and a half, thereabouts, roaming the planet earth, and she’s never seen that before.

And you could say the world has gone to black damnation, and you could say the children of Cain are holding sway over the good and the righteous—but here’s what Temple knows: She knows that whatever hell the world went to, and whatever evil she’s perpetrated her own self, and whatever series of cursed misfortunes brought her down here to this island to be harbored away from the order of mankind, well, all those things are what put her there that night to stand amid the Daylight Moon and the Miracle of the Fish—which she wouldn’t of got to see otherwise.

See, God is a slick god. He makes it so you don’t miss out on nothing you’re supposed to witness firsthand.

SHE SLEEPS in an abandoned lighthouse at the top of a bluff. At the base there’s a circular room with a fireplace where she cooks fish in a blackened iron pot. The first night she discovered the hatch in the floor that opened into a dank storage room. There she found candles, fishhooks, a first aid kit, a flare gun with a box of oxidized rounds. She tried one, but it was dead.

In the mornings she digs for pignuts in the underbrush and checks her nets for fish. She leaves her sneakers in the lighthouse, she likes the feel of the hot sand on the soles of her feet. The Florida beachgrass between her toes. The palm trees are like bushes in the air, their brittle dead fronds like a skirt of bones around the tall trunks, rattling in the breeze.

At noon every day, she climbs the spiral stairs to the top of the signal tower, pausing at the middle landing to catch her breath and feel the sun on her face from the grimy window. At the top, she walks the catwalk once around—gazing out over the illimitable sea, and then, toward the mainland coast, the rocky cusp of the blight continent. Sometimes she stops to look at the inverted hemisphere of the light itself, that blind glass optic, like a cauldron turned on its side and covered with a thousand square mirrors.

She can see her reflection there, clear and multifarious. An army of her.

Afternoons, she looks through the unrotted magazines she’d found lining some boxes of kerosene. The words mean nothing to her, but the pictures she likes. They evoke places she has never been—crowds of the sharply dressed hailing the arrival of someone in a long black car, people in white suits reclining on couches in homes where there’s no blood crusted on the walls, women in undergarments on backdrops of seamless white. Abstract heaven, that white—where could such a white exist? If she had all the white paint left in the world, what would go untouched by her brush? She closes her eyes and thinks about it.

It can be cold at night. She keeps the fire going and pulls her army jacket tighter around her torso and listens to the ocean wind whistling loud through the hollow flute of her tall home.

MIRACLE, OR augury maybe—because the morning after the glowing fish, she finds the body on the beach. She sees it during her morning walk around the island to check the nets, she finds it on the north point of the teardrop landmass, near the shoal.

At first it is a black shape against the white sand, and she studies it from a distance, measures it with her fingers up to her eye.

Too small to be a person, unless it’s folded double or half buried. Which it could be.

She looks around. The wind blowing through the grass above the shore makes a peaceful sound.

She sits and studies the thing and waits for movement.

The shoal is bigger today. It keeps getting bigger. When she first came, the island seemed like a long way off from the mainland. She swam to it, using an empty red and white cooler to help keep her afloat in the currents. That was months ago. Since then the island has gotten bigger, the season pulling the water out farther and farther every night, drawing the island closer to the mainland. There is a spit of reefy rock extending out from the shore of the mainland and pointing toward the island, and there are large fragments of jutting coral reaching in the other direction from the island. Like the fingers of God and Adam, and each day they come closer to touching as the water retreats and gets shallower along the shoal.

But it still seems safe. The breakers on the reef are violent and thunderous. You wouldn’t be able to get across the shoal without busting yourself to pieces on the rock. Not yet at least.

The shape doesn’t move, so she stands and approaches it carefully.

It’s a man, buried facedown in the sand, the tail of his flannel shirt whipping back and forth in the wind. There’s something about the way his legs are arranged, one knee up by the small of his back, that tells her his back is broken. There’s sand in his hair, and his fingernails are torn and blue.

She looks around again. Then she raises her foot and pokes the man’s back with her toe. Nothing happens so she pokes him again, harder.

That’s when he starts squirming.

There are muffled sounds coming from his throat, strained grunts and growls—frustration and pathos rather than suffering or pain. His arms begin to sweep the sand as if to make an angel. And there’s a writhing, rippling movement that goes through the muscles of his body, as of a broken toy twitching with mechanical repetition, unable to right itself.

Meatskin, she says aloud.

One of the hands catches at her ankle, but she kicks it off.

She sits down beside him and leans back on her hands and braces her feet up against the torso and pushes the body so that it flips over faceup, leaving a crooked, wet indentation in the sand.

One arm is still flailing, but the other is caught under his back so she stays on that side of him and kneels over his exposed face.

The jaw is missing altogether, along with one of the eyes. The face is blistered black and torn. A flap of skin on the cheekbone is pulled back and pasted with wet sand, revealing the yellow white of bone and cartilage underneath. The place where the eye was is now a mushy soup of thick clear fluid mixed with blood, like ketchup eggs. There’s a string of kelp sticking out of the nose that makes him look almost comical—as though someone has played a practical joke on him.

But the rightness of his face is distorted by the missing mandible. Even revolting things can be made to look whole if there is a symmetry to them—but with the jaw gone, the face looks squat and the neck looks absurdly equine.

She moves her fingers back and forth before his one good eye, and the eye rolls around in its socket trying to follow the movement but stuttering in its focus. Then she puts her fingers down where the mouth would be. He has a set of upper teeth, cracked and brittle, but nothing beneath to bite down against. When she puts her fingers there, she can see the tendons tucked in behind his teeth clicking away in a radial pattern. There are milky white bones jutting out where the mandible would be attached and yellow ligaments like rubber bands stretching and relaxing, stretching and relaxing, with the ghost motion of chewing.

What you gonna do? she says. Bite me? I think your biting days are gone away, mister.

She takes her hand from his face and sits back, looking at him.

He gets his head shifted in her direction and keeps squirming.

Stop fightin against yourself, she says. Your back’s broke. You ain’t going nowhere. This is just about the end of your days.

She sighs and casts a gaze over the rocky shoal in the distance, the wide flat mainland beyond.

What’d you come here for anyway, meatskin? she says. Did you smell some girlblood carried on the wind? Did you just have to have some? I know you didn’t swim here. Too slow and stupid for that.

There is a gurgle in his throat and a blue crab bursts out from the sandy exposed end of the windpipe and scurries away.

You know what I think? she says. I think you tried to climb across those rocks. And I think you got picked up by those waves and got bust apart pretty good. That’s what I think. What do you say about that?

He has worked the arm free from underneath him and reaches toward her. But the fingers fall short by inches and dig furrows in the sand.

Well, she says, you shoulda been here last night. There was a moon so big you could just about reach up and pluck it out of the sky. And these fish, all electriclike, buzzing in circles round my ankles. It was something else, mister. I’m telling you, a miracle if ever there was one.

She looks at the rolling eye and the shuddering torso.

Maybe you ain’t so interested in miracles. But still and all, you can cherish a miracle without deserving one. We’re all of us beholden to the beauty of the world, even the bad ones of us. Maybe the bad ones most of all.

She sighs, deep and long.

Anyway, she says, I guess you heard enough of my palaver. Listen to me, I’m doin enough jawing for the both of us. Enough jawing for the both of us—get it?

She laughs at her joke, and her laughter trails off as she stands and brushes the sand off her palms and looks out over the water to the mainland. Then she walks up to a stand of palm trees above the beach and looks in the grassy undergrowth, stomping around with her feet until she finds what she’s looking for. It’s a big rock, bigger than a football. It takes her half an hour to dig around it with a stick and extract it from the earth. Nature doesn’t like to be tinkered with.

Then she carries the rock back down to the beach where the man is lying mostly still.

When he sees her, he comes to life again and begins squirming and shuddering and guggling his throat.

Anyway, she says to him, you’re the first one that got here. That counts, I guess. It makes you like Christopher Columbus or something. But this tide and all—you wanna bet there’s more of you coming? You wanna bet there’s all your slug friends on their way? That’s a pretty safe bet, I’d say.

She nods and looks out over the shoal again.

Okay then, she says, lifting the rock up over her head and bringing it down on his face with a thick wet crunch.

The arms are still moving, but she knows that happens for a while afterward sometimes. She lifts the rock again and brings it down twice more just to make sure.

Then she leaves the rock where it is, like a headstone, and goes down to her fishing net and finds a medium-sized fish in it and takes the fish back up to the lighthouse, where she cooks it over a fire and eats it with salt and pepper.

Then she climbs the steps to the top of the tower and goes out on the catwalk and looks far off toward the mainland.

She kneels down and puts her chin against the cold metal railing and says:

I reckon it’s time to move along again.

2.

That night, by firelight, she removes from the hatch in the floor the things she stowed there when she first arrived. The cooler, the canteen, the pistol with two good rounds left in it. Later, she takes the gurkha knife and the pocket stone down to the beach and sits on the sand whetting the edge of it in long smooth strokes. She takes her time with this, sitting there under the moon for the better part of an hour, until she can taste the sharpness of the blade with her tongue. It’s a good blade, a foot long with an inward curve to it. It whistles when she swings it through the air.

She sleeps soundly that night but wakes herself up just before dawn and gathers her things.

She puts the knife and the pistol and the canteen and her panama hat into the cooler and drags it down to the beach. Then she walks back up to the lighthouse to say goodbye.

It’s a sorry thing to leave your home, and this one’s been good to her. She feels like a pea at the base of that tallboy tower. She climbs the steps one last time to the catwalk and looks at herself in the thousand tiny mirrors of the dead light. Her hair is long and stringy, and she takes a band and ties it up in back.

Then she reaches in and uses her fingers to pry loose one of the little mirrors and puts it in her pocket as a souvenir of her time here.

Truth be told, the inward gaze is something she’s not too fond of. But there are secrets that lurk in the mind, and she doesn’t want any of them sneaking up on her. Sometimes it pays to take a deep look inside even if you get queasy gazing into those dark corners.

Back at the bottom, she goes out and shuts the door, pulling it closed tight behind her so the wind won’t blow it open and stir things around in there. It’s a warming thought to picture it staying the same after she’s gone away from it.

She stands at the base and cranes her neck to look up at it.

Goodbye, you good old tower, she says. Keep standin true. Take care of whoever settles down in you next, dead or alive, sinner or saint.

She nods. It’s a nice thing to say, she thinks, like a blessing or a toast or a birthday wish or a funeral sermon—and she knows that words have the power to make things true if they’re said right.

DOWN AT the beach, she strips naked and puts all her clothes and her shoes in the cooler with everything else and shuts the lid as tight as she can, stomping up and down on it a few times. She pulls it into the waves until it begins to lift in the current of its own accord—then she swings it in front of her and pushes it over the breakers until she’s beyond them and beyond the swells.

She swims toward the mainland, keeping far away from the shoal so the current won’t pull her onto the rocks. She keeps her arms around the cooler and kicks her feet, and when she’s tired she stops and floats and keeps an eye on the mainland to see which way the current is taking her. There’s a breeze that sweeps over the surface of the water, and it makes goosebumps on her wet skin, but it’s still better than attempting the swim at midday when the sun is directly overhead and parching you up like a lizard.

She has no way to tell time, but she’s no fast swimmer and it feels like an hour before she reaches the mainland and pulls the cooler up onto the beach and sits on a rock wringing the salt water out of her hair and drying her skin in the morning breeze.

The beach is deserted, and she opens the cooler and takes out a miniature spyglass and climbs a set of broken concrete steps to a gravel turnout overlooking the shore to get the lay of the land. There are two cars parked down the road and some shacks in the distance. Against the horizon she can see a few slugs. They haven’t caught her scent, and they’re limping around in their random jerky way. She keeps her head low and focuses the spyglass again on the two cars. One of them is a jeep, and the other is a squat red car with two doors. All the wheels seem intact from what she can tell.

Back down on the beach, she combs out her hair with her fingers and from under the screen of her hair she can see a figure on the shore in the distance. She doesn’t need the spyglass—she can tell by the way it lumbers. Slug. She finishes tugging the knots out of her hair and ties it up into a ponytail.

Then she takes her clothes from the cooler and dresses.

The slug has spotted her and is headed in her direction, but its feet keep getting tripped up in the sand.

She pulls out the spyglass and looks through it.

The dead woman is dressed in a nurse’s uniform. Her top is medical green, but her bottoms are brightly colored, like pajama pants. Temple can’t tell what the pattern is, but it looks like it could be lollipops.

She closes the spyglass and stows it in her pocket. Then she goes back to the cooler and takes out the pistol, checking the rounds to make sure they haven’t gotten wet, and puts on the sheathed gurkha knife, which hangs from her belt and straps to her thigh with two leather ties.

By the time she’s finished, the nurse is twenty yards away, her hands reaching out before her. Instinctual desire. Hunger, thirst, lust, all the vestigial drives knotted up in one churning, ambling stomach.

Temple looks one last time at the nurse, then turns and climbs the concrete stairs up toward the road.

The other slugs are still in the distance, but she knows they will catch sight of her soon enough, and that a few have a tendency to turn quickly into a pack and then a swarm—so she walks directly to where the cars are parked and opens the door of the red compact. The keys have been left in it, but the engine’s

[Tim Jones · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This was truly a good book. The prose was smooth and lyrical, ... and the characters were well rounded out. Not your average zombie apocalypse scenario. The story was captivating, and moved along at a good pace. Read this if you are tired of the same old "ex-military guy with the skills and tools to survive" cliché.

[kgabriel-863860 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Just that little bit off the beaten track. One star added for not being a serial.

[jessicareadsthings · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Interesting. Still processing my feelings on this one. One of the blurbs on the back said something to the effect of if Flannery O'Connor wrote a zombie novel. I don't really agree with that as there is significantly less humor in this than in O'Connor. It could be lumped into the Southern Gothic I suppose. It really, though, reminds me of Mary Doria Russell's The Sparrow. It sort of has that spiritually devastating effect that lingers after you've finished reading.

[usuallee · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Compelling, vivid literary zombie novel, elegiac and poignant yet with plenty of the violence and gore the genre is known for. The young girl protagonist, Temple, is very, very well drawn.

When assembling some fall Halloween themed class reads, I had 3 blockbusters: the latest Stephen King (the very solid Doctor Sleep) , World War Z (meh) , and Dracula (too talky) . And then I impulsively bought this one that I was not familiar with at all but that seemed intriguing and had some good reviews. Didn't think I would arguably enjoy Mr. Bell's relatively obscure novel the most of the four (it was definitely better than World War Z and, yes, Dracula) but that is what happened.

[librolindsay · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Seriously. This review has spoilers. I will give away the ending. And that would be a real shame for anyone who hasn't read it yet but would like to.

I'll be the first to say I'm a lightweight when it comes to horror books. Since I read one maybe once a year (and that's only in recent years), it's not really my place to say where an author or book stands in the genre, but dang, I must say that this book was great. It stressed me out, but I couldn't put it down and I didn't want it to end. It reminded me of The Road meets The Grapes of Wrath meets I Am Legend, but it wholly held its own as well. I liked that the book is a right balance of contemplation and action and that the two are not mutually exclusive. Man, those discussions especially between Temple and Moses Todd. It's great when a zombie apocalypse novel can really make a genuine stretch into discussions of humanity that ask you to regard these notions in the context of your life and not just of this particular world. Of course, I couldn't help thinking of The Walking Dead comics, which I thoroughly enjoy, but dare I say got me thinking in terms of my reality.

There were a couple spots that upset me, at least initially--the mutant "inheritors" for one. For an inexplicable reason I'm super picky about sci-fi/fantasy to a point where I can accept flesh-eating cadavers, but not 10-foot-tall skeletal semi-zombies. Bell didn't give me chance, though, to dwell on that point because the story kept on moving and shit got REAL. And I am still SO MAD that Temple freakin' died at the end! What the what?! I love that girl from the bottom of my heart. And by Minnie? I can't tell yet whether that ending will work itself out for me after it's had some time to settle...whether it's ludicrous in a good way or a bad way. It appears that perhaps this is the start of a series. However, as much as Moses Todd was a great foil to Temple, I feel cheated that Temple won't be in a potential sequel. I mean, don't get me wrong, Alden Bell is a great writer and I'm going to absolutely read his next novel (apparently, yes, following Moses and Abraham), but I just wish Temple could be there for it.

I'm so glad that this book won an award--it should win more awards--though seeing as it's an Alex Award, I'm not sure how comfortable I'd be giving it to a teen considering the type of violence and sex contained here. At least a younger teen. Or the repercussions of their parents finding out that it was my doing putting it in their hands. It certainly is moving though, and I'm pretty sure I would have loved it when I was 17 as much as I do now. Do yourself a favor and read this book. It's a doozy and well worth it.

[adastra-390400 · Rating: 1 out of 5 stars]

What a huge waste of time! This book is not only lacking any kind of interesting content whatsoever, it's also full of religious crap. Altogether, I just kept wanting to throw it against the wall in frustration. I can't believe I'll have to spent two seminar sessions talking about this garbage.

[ralphd00d-325171 · Rating: 1 out of 5 stars]

I made it about a third of the way into this book before giving up. The lack of proper punctuation was irritating - I refer to when someone was speaking, the usage of "" was not used. I would not say this is a YA novel, but it read like it was written by one. Perhaps because of the age/lack of education for the main character, that he author wrote in that particular style. I don't know. I just found it irritating, and too 'dumbed down' for me.

[silverthistle · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I have a love hate relationship with zombies. On the one hand I hate them because they scare the bejeesus out of me. On the other hand though, I love them because as soon as the zombies arrive I'm 99% guaranteed that the story takes a turn towards one of my most favourite genres. Apocalyptic. I LOVE end of the world scenario's!

It's catch 22. I WANT to read about the fall of civilisation but I'm not so keen on the resulting nightmare's which usually involve me fending of a pack of stinky dead guys who are keen to disembowel me and are smacking their lips at the prospect. I'm usually a bit wary of starting a zombie book. However, I'd read a lot of reviews for The Reapers are the Angels that mentioned that the zombies were not the focus of this book so I gamely gave it a whirl.

Soooo glad I managed to man-up! LOVED it! So much!

It's true, it's not about the zombies. They're there, and they're just as stinky and dead as you'd imagine but I felt 'safe' walking amongst them because I had Temple with me. Temple is so amazing. From now on in my nightmare's I'm going to take Temple with me. Temple has fear of nothing and/or nobody and despite being just a little girl, a teen, she's one of the most kick-ass heroine's I've read about in a long time.

She hasn't known any other way of life as she was born after the dead started rising and has been pretty much alone her whole life. We're told that she spent some of her early life in an orphanage and that she's had a few companions on her journey through the wasteland but when we meet her she is on her own. Having Temple as a guide made me just relax and enjoy the ride. She's Street-Smart and infinitely capable. She takes everything in her stride, doesn't freak out and above all get's the job done. Always. In a way she's even more deadly than the zombie's.

Along the way she meets two men who are to become central to her story. Maury is a grown man with the mental age of a very young child and Temple takes him under her wing and looks after him (initially unwillingly), and their relationship is very touching. Moses is an older, male version of Temple herself and their relaionship is based on friction but there's some grudging respect there too.

I'll be honest, I thought I was going to hate this book for the simple reason that within the first 2 pages I spotted my pet hate in written text. THE WORST TEXT CRIME. The word 'of' instead of 'have' - "I should of known that was wrong" instead of "I should have known that was wrong". I kept going though and quickly realised that it's mostly told from Temple's point of view and is written exactly as if spoken, text crimes and all. Having said that though, the story was so good and I was so engrossed in it that I was halfway through before I noticed there's nothing to indicate speech. Sound's crazy but I honestly didn't even notice that to begin with and when it suddenly dawned on me I didn't even miss a beat. It's weird but I didn't have a problem with it...which in itself is weird because that sort of thing usually rubs me up TOTALLY the wrong way.

Anyhoo, it's a fantastic story and I really, really wish it could be the first in a series. I know that's not possible though, due to the ending and I'm quite sad about that. I'd happily have read more of Temple's adventures.

I'd recommend this as a great read if you're into zombie apocalype, road-trip type books. I really, really liked it.

[stephanie_m-868484 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This audiobook was brilliant. It's like...... A philosophical zombie apocalypse novel. It's like all the best parts of The Road, The Walking Dead, and Winter’s Bone.......and just as sad. It made me think a lot, which is different from the other novels I've read, recently.
Tai Sammons narrated the audiobook, and she was amazing at it. I'm not sure of her age, nor her skill, but her narration kept all the characters separate and completely different.
This is the first novel in a series.
4.5 stars, and highly recommended.

[benkaboo-51322 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Summary: A young girl, grown up in a post-apocalyptic zombie world; travels America meeting its inhabitants and finding her own brand of philosophy.

Things I liked:

Style: The style is a bit like the Adventures of Tom Sawyer, very lyrical (possibly purple prose at times), but a refreshing contrast to the violent world of zombies and survival. The style underpins the beauty that the girl, Temple, sees in the world despite her survival driven existance.

Story elements:

I liked Temple and the Dummy; Temple and the Mose; Temple and the Cowboy. Great character pairings. I liked the choice to make this a road trip story with significant stops along the way.

Pace:

The story moved at a good pace, not slow, not frenetic, the style helped with this. It just made the character seem really laid back.

Ending:

Bold choice killing the narrator it felt right, but wow, did not really see that coming in the way that it did.


Things I thought could be improved:


People seemed a bit to nice: Maybe I'm a big fat cynic, but everyone they meet seems to be basically come on in and share my food and shelter and they're all, sure thanks for having us. I didn't really buy it. But it eased off as the story went on.

Some of the language of the woman/child temple (who supposedly had been born post-zombie-disaster seemed to be strongly referenced to pre-zombie-disaster concepts (like beautiful women spending heaps of time putting on makeup for example). This seemed misplaced and I found it distracting from both the character and the story.

Highlight:

Probably the final show down. I also really liked the bit when the train shows up, I think trains in Zombie land is a great idea .

[jonfaith · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Katniss Everdeen apparently became lost while bow-hunting in what passes for YA Dystopia. She quickly found herself in a global charnel house, a dread zone, while trekking up a I-90 ravaged by the walking dead. Before she can mutter poppenjay, she's become a real killing machine, as opposed to the bloodless slaughter of the Volturi. Ree emerges gore-spattered and prone to psychotic rages. Transformed and seeking atonement, Bella is saddled with Lennie Small as they attempt to outwit Anton Chigurh, while all the while carrying the fire; that is when Buffy/Katniss/Temple isn't butchering mutants, nine feet tall and socially ill-disposed. Apparently Tom Hanks will play all these roles in the film adaptation.

It is a Gothic success, though the voiceovers are a bit purple. Recommended.

[ron18-1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I'm usually unable to look past some of the issues I felt this book had (illogical pacing, unreasonable scenarios, baffling timing, rejected realism) - - but the strengths outweigh the weaknesses, and frankly hide them in some really sweet smoke and mirror business that I don't care to look at too closely.
It's not the best zombie book you're going to read - - but it is easily better than 85% or more of them.
I won't reread it - but I liked it and was happy to turn the pages.

[a.happy.booker · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

The Reapers Are the Angels I have read so many glowing reviews of The Reapers are the Angels that I simply had to see what all the fuss was about and even though I was warned ahead of time about the bloody bits, I still wanted to read this. I decided to listen to this on audio and I think the narrator did an amazing job giving voice to the conflicted and unique character that was Temple. I would certainly recommend this audio to anyone who is planning to read this. Temple was an intriguing character, so full of contrasts, she was kind and considerate but with the capacity to become extremely violent if provoked which made sense considering the dangerous world she grew up in. She was also extremely intelligent, logical, and self-aware but at the same time illiterate and simplistic in many ways. Her character fascinated me and reminded me, in a lot of ways, of Saba from Blood Red Road except Temple was much more complex. I was fascinated with the way she accepted the world for what it was and did her best to work within it instead of fight against what she could not control. I have to say, Temple is one of the most interesting characters I’ve read. The writing was vividly descriptive and unapologetically raw. It brought to life a bleak and desolate world overrun by the undead who were themselves more pathetic and sad than scary. The pockets of survivors that Temple came upon showed the best and worst of humanity. It was interesting to see the many ways that desperation and hopelessness may cause people to react. There were some people and situations that pushed the boundaries of believability, even for a zombie book but for the most part, I could realistically imagine that this is what the aftermath of a zombie apocalypse would look like. For some reason, I felt really disconnected from the story. I’m not sure whether it was the third person narration or the philosophical and highly allegorical way this was written, but while I could pick out a hundred beautifully phrased quotes, I was never truly engaged in the story. At times I felt that the writing was almost a bit pretentious and that it tried so hard to be literature as opposed to genre fiction that it overreached and ended up just being absurd. Or it could simply be that I am more interested in being entertained by a story than in trying to ponder life’s mysteries or decipher allegory. I definitely enjoyed listening to The Reapers are the Angels and, while it wasn’t really my thing, I can certainly see where other people would appreciate the writing style and depth.

[flying_monkeys_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Rating: 4.5 of 5Status updates - 2/28/2012, page 97: Loving Temple; she's such a great character. And what a unique perspective in a zombie-infested world. Though, I may be traumatized if she doesn't make it.2/28/2012, page 225: Intelligent, well-written, horrific, and GD depressing. Prolly shoulda waited longer, though; having read The Road in December 2011 and now this one, whew! I'm gonna need either high doses of happy pills or a few solid months of light reading to recover. :D

[akmargie · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

It was a more literary take on zombies, which means it was more serious in tone and less grusome although there was enough ick. But the end, le sigh. Le sigh.

[cassielm_2 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Yes, it's a zombie book, but it doesn't follow the typical zombie tropes. It probably feels so refreshing and different because the whole thing takes place at least a decade after the initial outbreak. People have settled into small colonies and have gotten used to surviving in the post zombie-apocalyptic world.

The narrative voice (third person, but definitely the voice of the protagonist, Temple) is very unusual. If you love flowery and poetic language, you won't like it. It's definitely a very character full voice. I think it added a nice layer to the story.

All in all, this was absolutely a fun monster-book read, but it wasn't the kind that lowers your IQ while you read it.

[lou_cadle · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Liked and admired this book. Wonderful lead character.

[ncdonnas · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

The Reapers Are the Angels I have read so many glowing reviews of The Reapers are the Angels that I simply had to see what all the fuss was about and even though I was warned ahead of time about the bloody bits, I still wanted to read this. I decided to listen to this on audio and I think the narrator did an amazing job giving voice to the conflicted and unique character that was Temple. I would certainly recommend this audio to anyone who is planning to read this. Temple was an intriguing character, so full of contrasts, she was kind and considerate but with the capacity to become extremely violent if provoked which made sense considering the dangerous world she grew up in. She was also extremely intelligent, logical, and self-aware but at the same time illiterate and simplistic in many ways. Her character fascinated me and reminded me, in a lot of ways, of Saba from Blood Red Road except Temple was much more complex. I was fascinated with the way she accepted the world for what it was and did her best to work within it instead of fight against what she could not control. I have to say, Temple is one of the most interesting characters I’ve read. The writing was vividly descriptive and unapologetically raw. It brought to life a bleak and desolate world overrun by the undead who were themselves more pathetic and sad than scary. The pockets of survivors that Temple came upon showed the best and worst of humanity. It was interesting to see the many ways that desperation and hopelessness may cause people to react. There were some people and situations that pushed the boundaries of believability, even for a zombie book but for the most part, I could realistically imagine that this is what the aftermath of a zombie apocalypse would look like. For some reason, I felt really disconnected from the story. I’m not sure whether it was the third person narration or the philosophical and highly allegorical way this was written, but while I could pick out a hundred beautifully phrased quotes, I was never truly engaged in the story. At times I felt that the writing was almost a bit pretentious and that it tried so hard to be literature as opposed to genre fiction that it overreached and ended up just being absurd. Or it could simply be that I am more interested in being entertained by a story than in trying to ponder life’s mysteries or decipher allegory. I definitely enjoyed listening to The Reapers are the Angels and, while it wasn’t really my thing, I can certainly see where other people would appreciate the writing style and depth.

[death_by_papercut · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I did not like this book. The writing felt amateurish. I found it to be boring and it failed to create a cohesive world. The ending was the most disappointing and unforgivable part of all. This book left me feeling like I had wasted my time. Don’t waste yours.

[tanya8dogearedcopy · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

"God is a slick god. Temple knows. She knows because of all the crackerjack miracles still to be seen on this ruined globe."

Those are the opening lines to the some of the most mesmerizing, beautifully wrought and gorgeous writing I've ever experienced. The basic linear narrative is that a fifteen-year-old girl from Tennessee treks through points South to deliver a charge (a retarded man) to his home in Texas. The world had changed in the past twenty-five years so that the landscape is populated by zombies; but far from this being some sort of cheap gimmick, the zombies serve as the counterpoints to the passages about civilization, humanity and, lots of "deep thoughts." Shades of I AM LEGEND (by Richard Matheson, starring Will Smith) come to mind; but then again it's much more than that, with its Carson McCullers-plus-George Romero writing style and the sense I'm listening to lit-fic rather than pulp. Yes, some of the scenes are gory, but there is a both a macabre and entrancing quality to those scenes that keeps the listener riveted. There are scenes imprinted in my mind's eye like a dream with the same sense of surreality.

And, too, a carnival of death, a grassy park near the city center, a merry- go- round that turns unceasing hour by hour, its old- time calliope breathing out dented and rusty notes while the slugs pull their own arms out of the sockets trying to climb aboard the moving platform, some disembodied limbs dragging in the dirt around and around, hands still gripping the metal poles— and the ones who succeed and climb aboard, mounting to the top of the wooden horses, joining with the endless motion of the machine, dazed to imbecility by gut memories of speed and human ingenuity.

As for Tai Sammons, she was dead-on right as the voice of Temple, the protag in this story. The audio sounded like Temple telling her story, with Temple casting the roles of the other characters, not Tai. And Tai also kept true to the voice of Temple throughout the story, even when it could have easily shifted into another narrative voice.

[dulac3_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

3.5 – 4 stars

Well, I gotta say I didn't expect that ending.

_The Reapers are the Angels_ is my first foray into the très au courant genre of zombie apocalypse. It was a fortunate choice and I can only hope I enjoy other forays into the genre as much. One thing I can say is that it’s definitely a real page-turner . The story of Temple, the young bad-ass action-grrl born into a world after the rise of the undead, is compelling and engrossing and has definitely got velocity. Temple herself is interesting, a strangely positive girl despite the darkness of her past and the violence of both her world and her deeper character. She's a strange oxymoron, an optimist who seethes under the surface with supressed rage. I suppose she could be seen as yet another product of the Buffy/Katniss/whatever-action-grrl-of-the-moment template, but I thought she generally came across as being much more real than that stereotype would imply. She may be a warrior princess of sorts, but Temple has a certain naïve charm that sets her apart and she rarely goes looking for trouble, though of course it often finds her. Temple is also interesting in that she was born into the world of the apocalypse, so the status quo doesn’t disturb her in the same way as it does the survivors from the old time. She doesn’t see the world as a punishment and a curse, but rather as a gift. She sees the hand of God in everything and even the fact of the shambling dead is a miracle when you look at it from the right angle. It’s an interesting perspective however off-the-wall it might seem.

The other major element of the novel is its prose. The southern twang that nearly drips off the page is a joy to read and makes the novel seem, on the one hand, very literary. Yet there was another element to it that kept breaking through in the back of my mind and which occasionally broke the spell of the prose itself: this is also a novel that very much reads as though it were written with the cinematic version strongly in mind. At times it is almost like a movie treatment for the soon-to-be-produced vehicle starring the next Jennifer Lawrence as Temple (maybe Chloe Moretz? She’s young enough and certainly her stint as Hitgirl in ‘Kickass’ gives her some of the required experience in extreme violence). This isn’t exactly a bad thing, I guess, and the author is welcome to any income he can derive from his work, but it was a little distracting sometimes to think “ah yes, I can just see the dollar signs in the author’s eyes as he wrote this scene just for the big screen.” Unfair of me maybe, I don’t know, but it was a feeling I definitely got from time to time while reading. That said, this is still a great novel to read and it’s simply filled with the poetic palaver of the South so mellifluous to Northern ears.

Aside from being both a quest road-trip and the story of a young girl (who’s really more of an adult in all but the most literal temporal sense) coping with her past as she faces her future it is also, as others have pointed out, definitely a story about the American landscape. It’s a blasted and decayed landscape, but one where the character of its past still shines through in what remains. Ironically it seems to be those who are most willing to let go of this geographical memory that are most likely to succeed in this new world as opposed to the hopeless dreamers trying to claw their way back to the world of civilization and who pretend that their little enclaves of the old world are anything other than a fantasy.

I’ll conclude by saying that Alden Bell also did a great job of building up his characters and even those who had little more than a walk-on were generally interesting and unique. A shout-out has to go to Moses Todd one of the better villains (or perhaps I really ought to call him an antagonist) I’ve come across in awhile. He’s nearly as compelling as Temple and seeing the two of them together was nearly always a treat. I’m surprised to see this listed as book one in a series, but I’m willing to go along with Bell in his further forays across the twisted landscape of undead America.

[baystatera · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

The Blackstone Audio production of The Reapers Are the Angels by Alden Bell, narrated by Tai Simmons, is a mesmerizing horror story about a girl who comes of age amid the aftermath of a zombie apocalypse. Temple is a fifteen-year-old survivor who kept herself and her younger brother Malcolm alive for years, who never knew her parents and doesn’t remember the “old times” – the time before the breakdown of American society, when stores sold things, roads were maintained, families lived together in one place, and people stayed dead after they died.
Read full review on Bay State Reader's Advisory blog here.

[whitebalcony · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

YA zombie story with a touch of redneck class & very little in the way of Hollywood pizazz or the normal boring YA love triangle BS that takes a trilogy to unfold (snore). Thought provoking for sure.

[mybookishways · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

It's been 25 years since whatever horror that started the zombie apocalypse spread throughout the world. Fifteen year old Temple, driven from the lighthouse she calls home, begins a harrowing journey across a ruined America. Unflinching and brutal, Temple's journey is fraught with danger, yet she eventually finds a purpose that will test her capacity for love and hope, and strengthen her will to live.
I could not put this book down. I fell in love with this tough, damaged, illiterate, street smart girl as she made her way across a wasteland filled with not only unspeakable horror (there are some genuinely scary, disturbing moments), but also oasis' of beauty and humanity.
Alden Bell has created a zombie novel of the highest order. In addition, he's created something rarely seen in this genre, a literary gem.

[battlinjack_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

The Reapers are the Angels is a zombie book with a hell of a lot more going than brain eaters! It's more about being human and being humane. About survival in a world gone mad and loyalty. Loyalty to family and to those you meet. Shades or degrees of loyalty. It's also about the search for family a determination to find them no matter what.
Then it's about vengeance, revenge and if they are truly worth the cost.

I don't care if you can't stand zombies, this is a book about so much more that you do yourself a huge disservice by not reading it. If Alden Bell can write this good now, who knows where he'll be next year. I, for one, intend to follow and find out.

[bragan_8 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Fifteen-year-old Temple grew up in a world overrun by the dead, which has made her tough and dangerous, but somehow not diminished her sense of wonder. Now she wanders through what's left of the deep South, trying to survive and see something of the world while a man bent on vengeance dogs her steps.

The plot and the background aren't anything terribly remarkable, and there's one incident that seems as if it could have come straight out of a B-movie (something that's not actually a given in a zombie story). But the main character is satisfyingly well-rendered and the writing is excellent, intelligent and contemplative. This, apparently, is what happens when a zombie apocalypse story grows up and decides to embark on a career as a literary novel, while trying to stay in touch with its roots. I think the novelty value of that alone would be enough to make it worth reading.

[youthfulzombie · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Definitely the best book I've read in a while - this guy has a way with words.

[chenninger_2 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Good story. Has zombies and inspired me to go buy orange peanut butter crackers.

[kraaivrouw · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Without a doubt this is one of the best books I've read all year. It's beautifully written, high readable, has characters that are relatable, and world-building that is believable. Plus it's got zombies. Need I say more?

[magatha_6 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This is a book worth reading. I loved Temple. I loved the lyricism of the story. But do not go to this book for a rollicking good zombie-fest, with thrills and chills and a solid back-story. It's different than that. (It DOES have thrills and chills, though.) It's more elegiac. This IS the end of the world, but the end of the world doesn't happen all at once, or neatly. It ends maybe not with a whimper, but a nom-nom-nom groan, and eventually, silence. Meanwhile, Temple, the daughter or grand-daughter we'll never know (on account of us being dead after unleashing the apocalypse, and leaving her alone) wanders through the world, musing about stuff, recognizing beauty, and killing whoever and whatever she has to. Did I mention I love Temple?