Review: Soulless

Soulless by Christopher Golden

Three world-famous mediums (media?) get together on a morning news show in New York City and have a séance. Within a few minutes, things go wrong in the TV studio and strange and terrifying things start happening in the surrounding area. Namely, the dead are rising and feeding on innocent people, particularly their own families.

Soulless follows several teenagers and their horrific experiences during "the Uprising": Phoenix is the daughter of one of the mediums, Matt and Noah are school rivals who are trying to get to their families in NYC, Sara and Zack are stuck inside Sara's house, Jack is a gang member on the run, and Tania is a television and music star on her way to an interview. All of them are trying to stay alive against thousands of rampaging zombies and put an end to the problem.

I'm not ashamed to admit that this book gave me some troubled sleep for a night or two, which is my own fault for reading it before going to bed. Zombies are one thing, but zombies that especially prey on their own loved ones?! It made my skin crawl.

Which is not to say that I didn't enjoy the book and devour it in two sittings. The zombies were creepy and terrifying, the characters and their relationships were interesting, and the action was pretty much nonstop. While there was a lot of violence, I appreciated that the gruesomeness wasn't over the top. Just enough detail to make me shudder is exactly how I like it, and Soulless made me shudder repeatedly.

4 stars out of 5 for Soulless.

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