Dust — Joan Frances Turner

Zombies are everywhere right now, from the movies to survival guides to
Pride and Prejudice. Dust is different. It is not a piece of gruesome cleverness to ward off death or a simple story about monsters and things that go bump in the night. It's something altogether new, a story told from the point of view of the zombie because really, the undead are nothing but people who died.

What if dead people still have minds of their own, can laugh and fight and form friendships and love each other and grieve? What if the moans and groans you hear are an actual language? What if the undead have a "life" span, slowly aging and decaying, and crumbling into dust just as inert bodies do in the coffin? What if the creature in your crosshairs still remembers you, loves you, but can't plead for what you once were to each other before you pull the trigger?

It's a terrible beauty that the former Jessica Anne Porter sees in her fellow undead, but she does see it. They are survivors. In an increasingly senseless world, instinct pulls them on toward a faintly remembered shore, where centuries ago...something...happened.

Dust is an amazing first novel. Its steady gaze, through the eyes of Jessie -- an angry, lonely girl yearning for love and acceptance but furious at the world -- takes in characters who until now have been a punch line, and forces you to care. It forces you to face your own worst fears about life, death, and what comes next.