Positive audiobook

This is an outstanding, character driven zombie novel that gripped me from start to finish. It's not the usual guts and gore you'd expect in the genre, but it's still very much action packed. Its focus mainly lies on the characters and their struggle to make it in a world still ravaged by a deadly virus, 20 years after it all went downhill.We follow Finn, a "positive" who is kicked out of his home in New York, as he sets on a quest to find his place in this messed-up world and the struggles he encounters along the way.Highly recommend to all fans of zombie tales, especially if you don't mind a bit more brains and heart instead of blood and gore.

I read this book in early January and it is still one of my favorite books of the year. Thought I'd add my review here to share my love. This is one of those books that you don't want it to end. Not a zombie fan? Me neither. I enjoy Walking Dead, (not to the same degree as my teenage son), but then it isn’t about the zombies, is it? It’s about people surviving in a post-apocalyptic world, the politics and the break-down of society. The zombie killings are for the fun of it, yes? So I wasn’t thinking, yay, David Wellington's Positive is the book for me. It has Zombies in the blurb. However, it was the book for me. Wellington has cleverly put a new spin on an overstuffed genre. There’s heart in Positive, solid characters, and a storyline that doesn’t dawdle along examining all the minutiae which bogs down some of these post-apocalyptic stories. It’s the book Walking Dead viewers should read when they still want zombies, but need a fresh take. The only thing I didn’t love about the book was that it ended. I didn’t want to leave the characters or the Positive world behind. Positive drops us into Manhattan, where society has a certain normality about it now the zombie apocalypse is into its second generation of survivors This younger generation know nothing else except this world of struggling survival. When their parents tell them it was better in our day, it absolutely is the truth. Within Manhattan, they are fairly safe, although this zombie virus can sometimes gestate for up to twenty-one years. If you are unfortunate enough to be born to someone who suddenly turns zombie, like our protagonist Finn, whose mother goes Zombie, you are tattooed with a positive sign and segregated from the population until the expiration of the incubation period. Finn, meant to be delivered to a camp in another state to wait out his time, has his transport ambushed. He is left alone to survive in the treacherous territory outside the safety of Manhattan. In order to stay alive, he must throw his lot in with scavengers and various people who have adapted to the constant threat of death. It’s a road trip of epic adventure and drama, as Finn realizes zombies may not be the worst enemies he must face. Wellington is an accomplished writer with a great story to tell in the ilk of The Passage, The Road, and even Stephen King’s The Stand. For all those zombie and horror snobs, jump in to this novel and get your reading hands bloodied, so to speak. You may be surprised how enjoyable the genre is when you’re in the hands of a talented writer. I still may not be a zombie fan, but I’m now firmly a David Wellington fan.If you are a post apocalyptic fan, this is for you even if you're not a zombie fan.I received a copy of this book from Harper Collins for an honest review. Thank you to the wonderful book-loving people there.

About 3.5 stars. In a way, this book kind of reminded me of Julie Kagawa's Blood of Eden series but instead of vampires, we have zombies and people who have tested positive for the zombie virus. Positive is a new spin on the zombie apocalypse story. In Positive, the zombie apocalypse occurred about 20 years earlier. People live in the relative safety of walled cities. Our hero hails from Manhattan, where the subways are flooded and provide some fishing for our hero Finn and his buddy Ike. The zombie virus is also a different take on the old zombie story. Now it can take anywhere from exposure to 20 years for the zombie virus to manifest and turn a person into a snarling flesh-eating killer. When Finn's mother goes zombie, the whole family is tested and Finn is sent to a medical camp in Ohio. He doesn't get there right away because his ride is killed by a very scary lady. Finn begins his voyage across the US looking for that medical center where all will be good. On his way he learns about the world outside Manhattan. This is a journey story and each step along the way builds Finn's character. From what he sees of the world, he knows what kind of man he doesn't want to become. I liked Finn's character. For someone with so little life experience, he was a quick learner and even quicker to react to situations. I loved how he treated his "family" and wanted to keep the girls safe, especially Kylie. Kylie was a strong character as well considering what she had gone through with Adare. Positive kept me reading way into the night. The last part of the book was intense and I couldn't put the book down. I look forward to reading more books by this author in the future.Thank you to Edelweiss and Harper Voyager for a review copy of this book.

4 Stars Positive by David Wellington was a pleasant surprise. I have truly been tired of the whole flesh eating, walking dead zombie scene. I cannot stomach another teen angst post apocalyptic puke fest. I am as turned off to the genre-gone-pop culture now, as much as I was once turned off to vampires a la Twilight. I am just bored of reading the same thing over and over again.Wellington does this one right in that he gives us a protagonist worth routing for and a person worth caring about. Finnegan(Stones) is a young man that has his whole life turned upside down when he tests for and is subsequently marked as a Positive. A person that could one day simply zombie out. I really liked the growth that he under goes and the way we see him become a man worthy of his name. Kylie, the small female lead is also easy to identify with and she shows great growth as well.Positive works because it is a well written story. A lot happens in this book and we are given quite a lot of backstory and world building giving this book some meat and potatoes. There are several good side characters that add to the color. I thoroughly enjoyed this book from cover to cover and was satisfied with my read. To me this is a big fat deal because I get have had my fill of the genre lately. It is easy to recommend this book.Now a seriously long digression. I have a serious problem with the genre. With our society. With my neighbors. And with my family and friends. Modern man...25,000 years of written record. Evolution. Expansion. Education. Humans are supposed to be an enlightened species. We are supposed to have morals, compassion, and empathy. We are supposed to be evolving and becoming more. Yet like in this book, all books, movies, television, and even the nightly news, when the shit hits the fan we immediately become something worse than the actual monsters portrayed. We kill each other. We rape our women. Fuck we rape our children. Never in these incidents are we anything less than sickening animals. I have a serious problem with this and wonder if it will ever be different. I have a serious problem believing in a real society when underneath all, we sucks. Oh well. Sorry for that.

It has been awhile since I’ve been so engrossed in a zombie book. Wellington does a tremendous job adding subtle twists to the genre while delivering increasing tension as the adventure unfolds. Not many zombie stories are about the post-post apocalypse, and I was fascinated at how this second generation of survivors survived. The concept of how the virus incubates was very clever and presented a new kind of unsuspecting horror.I loved our main character, Finn, and the main female lead, Kylie. Very subtle character growth on both of their parts, but each scene showed change, and in the end I was moved because of the realistic and courageous way they learned to embrace life.The short chapters were great for how easy they were to read before bed, often forcing me to read just one more, and one more. Each one, while short packed, is filled with purpose in a way that only gifted, experienced storytellers can.I love that this book was long enough to give us an epic adventure from a walled off New York to the open wasteland of the Midwest. This is the kind of survival adventure I love. His description of zombie encounters was terrifying. I only wish there were more. The focus left zombies almost entirely midway through — maybe that was for the best, but I missed their role.I think people who are tired of mediocre zombie fiction will love the freshness of this tale and seek out more David Wellington stories, ASAP.I was sent a review copy as part of the HarperVoyager Super Readers program in return for an honest review. This has been the best book they’ve sent me!Reviewed at Adventures in SciFi Publishing

Review courtesy of All Things Urban Fantasy:POSITIVE's post apocalyptic America is a scary place: walled cities that are barely surviving, a terrifying death cult moving in from the west, and endless stretches of open road with zombies at every turn. It's a wild, wild ride.Finnegan is exiled from New York at 18, but he still feels very much like a child. He is a second-generation survivor, and he doesn't understand why the first-generation are so quick to panic. When he is thrust from the relative safety of Manhattan island into the wilds, he has a steep learning curve to deal with. I loved how little things showed how sheltered he was: thinking Ohio is two hours away from Manhattan, not understanding family pictures, and more. As he meets people, more nasty than good, he quickly learns how difficult it is to survive after the world has ended.By the end of the book though, he has matured and turned into a leader of his fellow Positives, people who have been exposed to the zombie virus and could change at any time. His evolution feels natural and realistic, with Finn doubting himself along the way and struggling to keep this eclectic group of people together. I think what suprised me most about the book is that no matter how devastatingly horrible things got, by the time I put it down I felt really good about it. In the end, it's a pretty positive book.Wellington's writing style is quick and chilling, with short little chapters that keep the story moving. It makes it easy to keep up with the pace. Even when there is a slower portion of the story, Finn's safety is never guaranteed. Whether he is being held by a slave driver or in the hands of the benevolent government, it's a dangerous world to live in and the pressure never lets off.Filled with truly horrific, evil characters (other humans, honestly), POSITIVE is not for the faint of heart but is a wonderfully original take on the post-zombie world. So many books concentrate on the apocalypse; it's refreshing to see what happens when it's time to try to rebuild. Highly recommended for both zombie and post-apocalyptic lovers.

Overall, an excellent end-of-the-world thriller. Lots of smart things to say about the way civilization falls apart and then potentially gets reborn.

Joanie. Joanie. Joanie. And Tasha. Dystopia's finest. This is a good one. Sometime I thought I wanted to linger where he was a bit longer "to see what it was like" but in the end...yes. Not a literary work if genius but GREAT apocalypse stuff. Read soon. Very worthwhile.

Aside from the main character being annoyingly naive and unfailing optimistic at times, this was a well written storyline. All you could ask for of a post apocalyptic zombie infested landscape - plenty of action, gore, and vividly disturbing acts of violence.

Look. I read to the end, and I liked it, and I wish he'd hurry up and write a sequel. It's like the 80th zombie novel I've read in 5 years, so I'm not exactly proud of myself. But I liked it!

** spoiler alert ** Personal responseI think Positive is a great book. The author really keeps me interested the entire time I was reading the book, which is important because the zombie genre is bloated. The main characters have lots of personality, good backstories, and grew as individuals. I am appalled that Adare tries to castrate Finn with some wire just to show his dominance over him.PlotThe book starts out with Finn and his best friend, Ike, fishing in the sewers of apocalyptic New York City. They are born just before the zombie disease broke out and the world goes into chaos. They are fishing with one of the elders in their settlement who keeps preaching to them about what their generation had to deal with when the apocalypse began. Finn and Ike catch some fish and go to Finn's house to eat it. When they get there and cooked the fish, they break it open and a bunch of black sludge comes out. That is very upsetting to Finn's mom. Finn's mother starts to have a seizure and she turns into a Zombie, it turns out the disease was dormant in her up to that point. Finn and his friend, Ike, are taken to the hospital after they kill Finn's mom. Finn gets a plus sign tattooed across his hand to mark him as a positive, which means he could have the zombie disease or not. What is left of the government at this point wouldn't take chances so they sent him out of the city. He was supposed to meet someone outside of the city who would take him to a camp for positives like him, except he finds the man who is supposed to take him, deceased. Finn is stuck outside the city with no supplies. Finn, eventually, ran into a looter who saves him. The looter has six teenage girls with him, which later in the book it is revealed that he uses them for sex. The looter takes Finn with him and Finn stays with him for a while. Eventually, Finn gets fed up with all the things the looter is doing with the girls and all the people he is killing so Finn tells him. Then the looter tries to castrate Finn, but Kylie, who is one of the girls the looter abuses, kills him. Then they go to a camp for positives. Then they broke out and started a city of their own, but they are attacked several times by crazy death cultists.CharacterizationKylie always has her emotional armor up never letting anyone know how she feels. She never gets attached to anyone because she is used to being sexually abused and physically abused. She meets Finn he started to show her that not everyone is out to hurt her. Eventually, she started showing emotion and actually caring about what happens to everyone, including herself. Finn starts out as soft/weak, and as he faced hardship after hardship and he overcomes them. He grows into a person who does what needs to be done, despite how hard or gruesome it may seem. Finn realizes that the world is a nasty place and he has to act adequately.SettingThe story takes place in post-apocalyptic America 15 years after disease ravages the world and made people into zombies. This affects the storyline because the government is struggling to reduce the spread of disease while trying to reassert their rule over parts of America where there is nothing but anarchy. There is a cult that has taken advantage of this and is gathering people to try and assert their dominance because of the lack of control the government has. Recommendation Despite the main character being a boy, I think that girls will like this book just as much as guys. Girls will like this book too if zombies and gruesome action is their thing. The reader should be in high school to read this due to the gruesome content within the book.

I already was a fan of David Wellington. He writes kick ass vampire books and, as it turns out, kick ass zombie apocalypse books. This book was, at times, like a "Tess of the D'Ubervilles" set in a zombie apocalypse. When you think shit cannot get worse for Finn, sometimes it does, sometimes he gets lucky. I thoroughly enjoyed this book.

20 years after the zombie apocalypse, 20 yro's, travel, fighting, hope, well-rounded, validation ending.

Excellent book. The character arc is inspiring. I hope Wellington write more books in this universe.

THIS. THIS BOOK. There are a few books I've read that I felt were absolutely realistic depictions of what a post-apocalyptic America would look like, and this book just joined the ranks.

Loved this book, just picked it off the library shelf because it looked interesting and it was a surprise how much it kept my attention from beginning to end! Highly recommended for zombie/apocalypse fans!