(Image from Barnes & Noble)

"They're not zombies, they're just people" (32).

When ThinPro hit the market, people went crazy for it.  So crazy that the demand for the diet drink outweighed the company's ability to produce a safe, quality product.  The result?  Questionable ingredients.  Which led to not just a public outcry, not just an FDA crackdown, not just an embarrassing public scandal, but the unthinkable:  zombies.  Maybe not the shambling, bloodthirsty nightmares slobbering their way across movie screens, but something like them.  Ordinary citizens turned violent.  Dangerous.  Became something not quite human.  

Two years after the epidemic was unleashed, the Contaminated (known as "Connies") aren't being hunted down, they're being rounded up and rehabilitated.  With shock collars keeping them controlled, the Connies can be safely reintroduced to their homes and communities.  Theoretically.  If, that is, anyone actually wants to claim their Contaminated relatives. 

Ever since her parents were taken in the first wave of Connie round-ups, Velvet Ellis has been searching for them.  When she finally finds her mother imprisoned in a kennel, the 17-year-old vows to bring her home.  She doesn't care what complications might arise, she just wants her mother back.  Even if the woman is about as interactive as a goldfish.  

Velvet's weary enough from two years of trying to keep herself and her little sister alive, but having a Connie around makes everything more complicated.  With fear of Connies still rampant, Velvet gets little support from anyone.  Still, she'll do anything to protect her mother.  Especially when the military comes sniffing around.  How far will she be forced to go in order to keep her mom safe?  Velvet has risked everything to prove that Connies aren't monsters—does she believe it enough to remove the shock collar from around her mother's neck?  Is she willing to risk all their lives by trusting a Connie?  

I've read a lot of zombie novels, enough to know just how different Contaminated by Em Garner is from its shelf-mates.  First off, it's sympathetic toward the afflicted.  Compassionate, even.  That's rare in a genre that generally glorifies violent, bloody zombie hunts.  Second, it's not really about the zombies/Connies.  At its heart, Contaminated is a gritty survival story about one girl's desperate plight to keep her family together.  That passionate struggle is what kept me reading, kept me cheering for Velvet's success, kept me thinking about the novel long after I'd finished it.  With a tense, taut plotline, sympathetic characters and a unique premise, Contaminated brings something new to the zombie genre.  It's a compelling, can't-look-away read that will appeal to anyone who digs a good survival story, zombie lover or not.  

(Readalikes:  its sequel, Mercy Mode by Em Garner)

Grade: