Book Review: Deathless Divide by Justina Ireland
An eerie premonition of real-life events in this Dread Nation sequel *light spoilers*
Zombies, or shamblers, are not my thing, but I had to check out the sequel to Dread Nation. I will warn you here that this review may contain spoilers for Dread Nation, as this review talks about the events that happen right after in the sequel.
Deathless Divide follows Jane and Katherine after the events of Summerland falling. Splitting the narrative between the two, we follow the girls as they search for some sort of normalcy in a world where they find the undead at every turn; they are closer to a turning point that will change their lives, and not in a good way.
Whenever I read stories about Zombies, I can’t help but compare the story to the pandemic. The way the infection spreads in the Dread Nation world feels eerily similar to COVID. Interestingly enough, both Dread Nation and Deathless Divide were written before COVID reached the United States in mass proportions, with Deathless Divide coming out a few weeks before we shut everything down here.
“…we know the curse that has been laid upon us — not the curse of bondage, but rather the curse of neglect. This country does not see, nor seek to remedy, the suffering of the Negro, and we are taxed to bear the wrath of white inadequacy.”
Each town that falls to the shamblers is full of people who don’t think it will happen to them, until it does, or they see a familiar face taken over. Political leaders with the responsibility of protecting their people will compromise the safety of the community in order to keep their power, or at least a semblance of power.
What fascinated me the most about this story is the fight against Gideon and his vaccine. The anti-vaxx argument here is strong. It gave me a sense of understanding for those who are against the COVID vaccine. We didn’t know much about this vaccine when it came out, and we weren’t sure if it was going to turn us into a shambler.
The difference between the vaccine for COVID and the vaccine in the story is ethical science. The researchers who developed the vaccine for COVID did not inject humans with the virus against their will just to see what happened. Gideon was a “mad scientist” with no ethics who didn’t care if his subjects lived or died if it meant he would go down in history as the one who found the cure.
This book didn’t just provide me with a nuanced look at different perspectives around pandemics, but it also gave me an intimate look at what an apocalypse can do to a person’s psyche.
We see both Jane and Katherine struggle to move past survival mode to discover what kind of life they want to make out of this world for themselves. We get to see their grief and their rage and their rare moments of joy. We get to see the way they choose family, and how they struggle to stay connected to other people because of how much they have lost.
We are all going through this grief in one way or another. We have lost that sense of normalcy, that trust in our leaders, and our connections to others are more tenuous than they have ever been.
If the pandemic is a lot for you right now, maybe wait to pick up this story. But if you love a good survivalist story, start with Dread Nation and make your way to Deathless Divide!
