The Zombie Romance That Made Me Cry on a Plane

So the zombies get better, and that’s the whole problem

Here’s the premise, and I promise it’s smarter than it sounds on paper. Mara Knight gets bitten early in the outbreak, turns into a Tick (Archer’s term for the infected, not quite zombie, not quite anything), and does what Ticks do: hunts, bites, kills. Then a drug called Dyebucetin comes along and does the unthinkable. It doesn’t kill the Ticks. It cures them, sort of. It turns them into something called Altered, which is not alive-alive, but is aware, remorseful, and stuck carrying the memory of every terrible thing their body did while their mind was gone.

One of the people Tick-Mara killed was Rory’s little sister. Rory is Mara’s former best friend. Also her lifelong crush. Also, once Mara is Altered and shipped off to a resettlement program on an island where Rory’s family happens to live, her new roommate, basically, whether either of them wants that or not.

That setup alone is doing more work than most zombie books manage in three sequels. This isn’t survivalist horror where the tension is “will the horde get in.” The horde already got in, a long time ago, and now the horror is quieter and worse: how do you look at the girl you loved when she’s the reason your sister is dead, and how do you live with yourself when you did the killing but weren’t, technically, you. Archer isn’t interested in the outbreak. She’s interested in what happens after, when the monster has to sit at your dinner table and pass the salt.

The romance actually earns its ache, the plot sometimes forgets to move

Let me say the good stuff first because there’s a lot of it. The central relationship between Mara and Rory is the reason to read this book, full stop. Archer writes their scenes together in present tense first person and it gives everything this jittery, unresolved feeling, like you’re watching two people circle a live wire. There’s a scene partway through where Rory finally, actually looks at Altered-Mara for the first time since the funeral, not flinching, not performing forgiveness, just looking, and it undid me. Not because of anything shocking happening. Because of how long Archer makes you wait for it, and how much restraint she shows once it arrives.

The found family stuff on the resettlement island is also genuinely lovely. The other Altered kids, the adults who are terrified of them, the ones who aren’t, it builds a community that feels lived in rather than sketched.

Now here’s the thing, and I might catch heat for this: the middle third sags. There’s a political subplot about the resettlement program and the townspeople who don’t want the Altered anywhere near them, and it’s thematically necessary (of course there’s backlash, of course someone wants them gone or worse), but structurally it keeps interrupting the emotional momentum right when I wanted to stay in a scene between Mara and Rory. I found myself skimming a few of the town council type passages to get back to the two of them, which is not something I say lightly about a book I otherwise loved. Kirkus mentioned the two girls’ voices blur together at times in the alternating chapters, and yeah, I noticed that too, there were a couple of spots where I had to flip back to confirm whose head I was in.

Am I being too soft on this because the central romance hit me somewhere personal? Maybe. I read the back half of this on a plane, the kind of flight where you’re stress-crying quietly into a window seat and hoping the guy next to you doesn’t notice, and books read under those conditions get grandfathered into your heart a little unfairly. I’m aware of that. I still think the ending, when it commits to actually earning Mara and Rory’s reconciliation instead of rushing it, is one of the better closing chapters I’ve read in YA in the last couple years.

The scariest part of surviving isn’t the monster you fought. It’s the monster you were, and having to live next to the people who remember.

About Brooke Archer

Brooke Archer is a Chapman University creative writing grad who, according to her own bio, spends her non-writing hours working at a doggy daycare in San Diego, which is either the most wholesome detail I’ve ever read in an author bio or proof that trauma and golden retrievers are the only two things that balance each other out. This is her debut novel, which makes the confidence of the voice a little startling. She followed it with a ghost romance set in a small town, and honestly, if she keeps pairing supernatural horror with genuinely aching queer love stories, I will keep showing up.

If this wrecked you, read these next

Isaac Marion’s Warm Bodies, for the obvious reason: it’s the book everyone compares this to, a zombie who can still love, though Archer’s version goes darker and sadder than Marion’s ever does.

Mackenzi Lee’s The Gentleman’s Guide to Vice and Virtue, if what you actually want is more messy, aching, will-they-figure-their-feelings-out queer YA romance minus the zombies.

Justina Ireland’s Dread Nation, for another YA zombie book that refuses to let the undead premise be just spectacle and instead uses it to say something real about who society decides is disposable.

For your book club

1. Mara wasn’t in control of her body as a Tick, but she still carries the guilt of what that body did. Where do you land on how much responsibility she actually bears?
2. Rory’s choice to live alongside Mara again, knowing what happened to her sister, is either an act of enormous grace or a form of self harm. Which did it feel like to you, and did that change as the book went on?
3. The resettlement island splits the town into those who want the Altered gone and those willing to coexist with them. Who did Archer make you sympathize with, even briefly, that surprised you?
4. Did the alternating perspectives work for you, or did you also find yourself losing track of whose chapter you were in?
5. If a cure existed for something you did while not fully yourself, would you want to remember every detail of what happened, the way the Altered do, or would forgetting be the kinder option?