Contaminated Review

TITLE Contaminated (Contaminated #1)
AUTHOR Em Garner
PUBLICATION July 23rd 2013 by EgmontUSA
READ June 24, 2013
SOURCE From the publisher for review

After the Contamination—an epidemic caused by the super-trendy diet drink SlimPro that turned ordinary citizens into violent, uncontrollable creatures—the government rounded up the “Connies” to protect the remaining population. Now, two years later, the rehabilitated are being allowed home, complete with shock collars that will either control, or kill, them.

Velvet Ellis has struggled to care for her ten-year-old sister since her parents were taken in the round up. When she finds her mother in one of the “Kennels,” Velvet resolves to do whatever it takes to put her family back together. But the danger isn’t over. It’s beginning all over again…

Gritty and grabbing, Velvet is a harrowing, emotionally charged novel for fans of Carrie Ryan and The Walking Dead.

Blergh. I really didn’t want to finish this book. But I did. Through the first 100 pages I had hoped that something would happen that would suck me into the story and really get the ball rolling. Then once I was passed those 100 pages and it hadn’t happened I felt that I was past the point of no return and decided to finish off the book even though I wasn’t a fan of it.

My main issue with this book is that it felt completely aimless. The story focuses on Velvet and Opal. Two sisters who are surviving on their own after a weight loss drink has contaminated the world and turned people into living, breathing zombies. When the outbreak first occurred it was thought that the only way to save these people was with an ice pick in the eye to do a lobotomy but things have moved forward and when we meet Velvet they are quite different. They have found a way to neutralize the Connies (what they call the contaminated.) They use shock collars to keep them tame and they have them living in kennels until loved ones come and lay claim to them.

When we meet Velvet she is a frequenter of the kennels as she searches for her mother. Of course she finds her and signs all of the papers so that she can finally bring her mom home and they can be a family again. That is basically the story. It’s a lot of Velvet playing house and taking care of her younger sister and her mom. Her mom is basically an invalid, needing to be bathed and wearing a diaper and all that jazz. Along with taking in her mother from the kennel, Velvet also gets a heavy dose of discrimination. There were moments where I felt bad for Velvet and how she had to grow up so fast and be responsible for her little sister and eventually her mother. But I can’t say that I ever found myself caring enough to actually get emotional about anything. In my waiting for something to happen I had a constant feeling of detachment from the story.

While I did find myself at least feeling bad for Velvet, I didn’t find myself feeling anything for any of the other characters. Her first boyfriend, Tony, was an ass who cheated on her so I hated him. At the tail end of the story she meets a new guy in Dillon and he felt too much like a knight in shining armor to me. He came in and was so sweet and overly good to Velvet that it just felt too good to be true. After such darkness was used to portray pretty much everyone in the world he felt much too perfect and I think I would have been able to be sold on his character had I gotten to see some of his flaws. They also fall for each other pretty fast with left me longing for more natural development so that I could ship them, but it just wasn't there.

Some of the early buzz for Contaminated that I saw uses phrases like “relentlessly horrifying” and “bone chilling” and “unputdownable”, I have to say that I didn’t see any of this. I put the book down after every few chapters and had to force myself to pick it back up, so I am deeming it “unpickupable”.