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Tuesday, October 29, 2013

Book Review: Inhuman

When I first started Kat Falls’s book, Inhuman, I couldn’t get the futuristic, post-apocalyptic vibe out of my head. In the book, a virus that mutates the human population into savage cannibals causes a seven hundred foot wall to be erected in order to separate the infected from the non-infected. Reminiscent of The Walking Dead and Game of Throne series, Falls takes familiar elements and makes them her own with her descriptions of two isolated societes who have been faced with the “Ferae Naturae” virus in her latest series.

Imagine a society obsessed with cleanliness: everyone is constantly sanitizing their hands, there is little physical contact to avoid germs, and kids go to school online to, well, avoid spreading those germs. Okay, that’s not too far off from the society we know now, but imagine if we became this way because a virus had turned half the population into cannibalistic human-animal hybrids. That’s the society that Delany Park McEvoy comes from on the western side of the wall. Thrown into the zone just east of the Mississippi, she aims to find her father and send him on a secret mission. We can see through her eyes what the virus has done.


What I found most interesting about this book was the manifestation of the Ferae virus. Falls does a wonderful job producing vivid imagery of the various human-animal hybrids and the animal-animal hybrids and the way that they behave and interact. The rules for the virus are both believable and stable. And the creatures that Falls creates and describes in the Kingdom of Chicago (yes, Chicago has a king) are simultaneously beautiful and frightening.

Now add, on top of these fantastical creatures, a love triangle and a journey of self-discovery. Delaney learns more about herself, her father, and other members of the society, making her decisions more and more difficult and loaded with consequences for all involved.



Inhuman is an adventurous and exciting tale from beginning to end with vivid imagery and a creative and interesting cast of characters that are presented through a well-constructed plot. I would recommend it to any young adult or science fiction fan and give it a 4.5 star rating. As it is the first of the trilogy, I am eagerly awaiting the next installment!

By: Sarina Clement