Audiobook Review – Deathless Divide (Dread Nation, Book 2) by Justina Ireland, Narrated by Bahni Turpin, Jordan Cobb (4.5/5 stars)
Reading Level: Young Adult
Genre: Historical Fantasy
Length: 560 pages
Publisher: Balzer + Bray
Release Date: February 4, 2020
ISBN-13: 978-0062570635
Stand Alone or Series: 2nd book in the Dread Nation series
Source: Audiobook from Audible.com
Rating: 4.5/5 stars
“After the fall of Summerland, Jane McKeene hoped her life would get simpler: Get out of town, stay alive, and head west to California to find her mother.
But nothing is easy when you’re a girl trained in putting down the restless dead, and a devastating loss on the road to a protected village called Nicodemus has Jane questioning everything she thought she knew about surviving in 1880s America.
What’s more, this safe haven is not what it appears—as Jane discovers when she sees familiar faces from Summerland amid this new society. Caught between mysteries and lies, the undead, and her own inner demons, Jane soon finds herself on a dark path of blood and violence that threatens to consume her.
But she won’t be in it alone.
Katherine Deveraux never expected to be allied with Jane McKeene. But after the hell she has endured, she knows friends are hard to come by—and that Jane needs her too, whether Jane wants to admit it or not.
Watching Jane’s back, however, is more than she bargained for, and when they both reach a breaking point, it’s up to Katherine to keep hope alive—even as she begins to fear that there is no happily-ever-after for girls like her.”
Series Info/Source: This is the 2nd book in the Dread Nation series. I got this on audiobook from Audible.com.
Audiobook Quality (4/5): For some reason they added a second narrator to read Kate’s parts and she just was not as good as the original narrator for the series. I really wish they had just had the original narrator do these parts. This second narrator really decreased the quality of this audiobook.
Story (4/5): This book is done in two parts. The first part follows Jane and Kate as they flee from Summerland with a horde in chase and head to Nicodemus. There they must prove Jane’s innocence regarding what happened in Summerland. However, when they find out Gideon also made it to Nicodemus things go awry quickly. The second part of the book is what happens after and we hear from Jane and Kate separately as they fight their own battles.
I didn’t enjoy this quite as much as the first book. This really did seem like two novellas that had been mashed together. It was good and engaging but it didn’t blow me away like the first book did.
Characters (5/5): I love the characters in this book, they are really part of what makes this an amazing story. Both Jane and Kate grow and change a lot throughout the story and the majority of the story is about them. However, there are a number of really well done side characters too.
Setting (5/5): This is the other really strong point of this series. I love this world and how well it was put together. We get to journey further west in this book and venture into areas that were left more untouched by the undead. Visiting the San Francisco of this world was especially fun.
Writing Style (4/5): As mentioned above, I wasn’t quite as impressed with the writing this time around. Jane’s parts were still very entertaining but I didn’t enjoy Kate as much, maybe because of the poor narration. I also thought the way the book was broken into two separate books felt really abrupt and jarring.
Summary (4.5/5): Overall I still really enjoyed this but was a bit disappointed in a couple aspects of this book. However, that won’t stop me from reading future books in this series. I was unable to find out if there will be more books in this series and things are pretty wrapped up here. I certainly hope there are though!