Charlie: A YA Zombie Horror Story [Zombie Slayer Book 1] (2019) - by Gayle Katz - Zombie Horror Book Review

Charlie: A YA Zombie Horror Story (Zombie Slayer Book 1) by Gayle Katz is a teenage horror novel that shares more than a few similarities with Buffy the Vampire Slayer. In fact, swap out the vampires for zombies and this is pretty much exactly that. It appears there are currently at least seven novels in the series now, this first one had a free eBook download, I guess to draw readers into the series.

High school student Charlie has moved across America from Texas to Portland to start a new life in a new town with her gran. This is due in part to her wanting to get away from her former life as a zlayer (a person given special abilities designed to help protect the world against the threat of zombie outbreaks). She hopes with the former zleader dead (undead can only thrive if the original one to turn them is still unalive) that there is no longer any danger to America. It isn't long until she discovers that is not the case, her former mentor, Mr. George, has travelled to Portland too, and he tells the girl of a new zleader turning up in the city. Teaming up with classmates Zan, another zlayer, and Owen, a truthspeaker, they begin their investigation into who the latest zleader is, so that they can put a stop to their chaos.

It soon become apparent this was geared towards teens rather than adult horror readers, and that is perfectly fine with me. Being in my forties, I had to often try and put myself more in the mindset of my younger self. If not for having been watching Buffy around that time in my life, I think I would have enjoyed this. There are lots of zombie outbreaks and attacks, with a decent bodycount, but it isn't a book designed to be scary. The biggest stumbling block was the simplicity of the story, with key plot points dealt with in an abrupt and sometimes underwhelming way. Take the eventual reveal of the main antagonist, within a chapter of this figure being identified, they had been dealt with and everything wrapped up in a nice bow. This is a world where characters are pretty black and white, if someone appears to be suspicious they are likely to be hiding secrets, if someone appears decent, then it isn't very likely they will turn out to have any skeletons in their closet. This did lead to me on occasion thinking more deeply into the story than was actually needed.

There was a bit of a dystopian feel to the world of the book, mainly with how people react to the amount of people getting killed. There are several sequences set during school field trips in which a fair number of students are killed, seemingly with no consequences for anyone involved. It seems the world is used to people randomly being murdered, but is never made entirely clear. At times, Charlie goes out of her way to hide the fact that zombies walk among us, at other times, it seems everyone is already aware of this. At one point when Charlie returns to the city after having been away, she is stopped at the city entrance and warned of a zombie outbreak happening by a soldier stationed there, at other times she is hiding corpses and making up fanciful stories to mask what is really happening. 
There is lots of zombie killing here, with several large scale events that Charlie, Zan, and Owen deal with very easily, in a typically unconcerned manner, it became hard to really feel any sense of danger with the breezy way these little situations are always dealt with. I did like the frustration that is present with Charlie unable to locate the real zleader, several half decent bait and switches for who is really in control.

Charlie: A YA Zombie Horror Story (Zombie Slayer Book 1) was probably something more enjoyable if you are not familiar with Buffy. The many comparisons in my mind made elements of this feel a little derivative, but the clear and simple chapters made this a breeze to get through.

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