When I got this book at AAD back in August, I had no intentions of reading it. It wasn’t until I was in the hotel room with my fellow blogger, Tigris Eden, that I made the decision to read this book. She told me to read the first page. She promised me that I would be sucked in. I read the first page and she was completely right. Unfortunately, I didn’t get a chance to return to The First Days until a couple of months later. I am a romance reader at heart but this book totally had me engrossed, entertained and skeeved out. The First Days is a thrilling and engaging read that pulls you in with the first page. The title of the first chapter is “Tiny fingers” and that stuck with me throughout the book. The description of Jenni, a wife and mother who just lost her family to the zombie infection, dealing with her baby trying to get at her through underneath the door had my heart pounding. I knew from that page on, that I would not be able to put this book down and I would not be able to forget that scene any time soon.What made this book stand out to me was the fact that I felt like I was watching a movie the entire time. The attention to detail was excellent without weighing down the plot. The violence is graphic and real and the action had me at the edge of my seat. I loved that for most of the book, the story was focused on Jenni and Katie, two women who met under dire circumstances who now how to depend on each other for survival. These women may not be your typical heroes but they quickly figured out how to kick some zombie ass.The transformation of each character throughout the book was phenomenal. Jenni went from an abused and weak woman to a warrior who was borderline psychotic at times with her need to shoot and kill zombies. Katie starts off as the strong, in charge one who Jenni leaned on and looked to for guidance. But as the story progresses, it is Jenni who becomes the strong one and the one that Katie looks to for support. Jenni does have her moments of being annoyingly co-dependent and Katie’s, what I felt was a little too convenient, reveal about her sexuality deterred a little from the story as a whole.B+Overall, The First Days was a fantastic read. I stepped outside my comfort zone and enjoyed it! It was a fast-paced thrill ride with great character development, action, guts and gore. The zombies are not the only bad guys in this story. You get a peek at what happens when survival is key and people leave their humanity behind in order to stay alive. I couldn’t get enough and was sad when I reached the end of the book. I am eagerly awaiting the next book, Fighting to Survive, to find out what happens next.
