Backyard Zombies by Stephanie Rabig

Backyard Zombies Reviews

• 
  karen

  ahem.
  
  dear goodreaders:
  
  it has come to my attention that there are over one million books being offered on nook for free. FOR FREE! ONE MILLION!
  
  and keeping in mind the success of self-published/fanfic masterpieces like
  Fifty Shades of Grey,
  Angelfall, and
  Wool, i have taken it upon myself to find the Next Big Thing amongst these titles.
  
  therefore, i will be reading as many of these as i can, to uncover the hidden gems, and passing along my findings to you. yes, you!!
  
  will they all be awesome?
  unlikely.
  am i going to pick most of them just because their covers or titles make me laugh?
  very likely, indeed.
  
  this is the twelfth book in the project.
  
  this one is on the better-than-many-others end of the nook freebie pool. it is short, as are most of them (except for the one that is 700 pages long, and which i have decided there is no way in hell i am reading, project or no project…) but it is a good, traditional zombie story.
  
  i mean, traditional if zombie love stories were traditional. i just mean this doesn't try to redefine zombies or pull any of that philosophical schtick which can be very good when the author has skills, but can also be wincingly bad.
  
  this one is just about a boy and a gun, alone in a world gone zombie, who finds himself a nice house with a lot of food and decides to hole up there for a while, living the best he can. the house also comes furnished with a handy and sturdy dog-collar-on-chain situation in the backyard, perfect for trapping and observing zombies.
  
  the first one does not go all that well. who knew that zombies could die if you don't feed them?? but he manages to learn many things while observing the doomed zombie, for science. many human characteristics are seemingly retained after the change. which is terrifying, no??
  
  and then… she comes into his life.
  
  
  
  a probably once-lovely girl; the ultimate fixer-upper, whom he chains up and observes, once again noticing some alarming human-ish behavior.
  
  then, things start to go wrong for our hero and his potential-beloved. but it's not (all) what you think.
  
  but there may be hope!! can their love survive a world undead?? can these crazy kids get together over a dinner of fresh corpse? and, if all goes well, will we be seeing some zombie-rotica from this author??
  
  fingers crossed!!
  
  
  come to my blog!
• 
  Carol [Goodreads Addict]

  This was a cute little short story about a boy trying to survive in a time of zombies. He finds a deserted house with lots of food so wants to stay there. There is a very strong chain and dog collar in the back yard so he traps a zombie and chains him up to observe him. The first captive didn't go very well but then he captures a female zombie and names her Sophie. He is really enjoying observing her and feels responsible for her in a somewhat disturbing way, even going so far as to find her "food!"
• 
  Brenda

  Surprisingly entertaining. I'll admit my reaction while reading this was to consistently chuckle. I love a good zombie read, and this is better than some of the ones I've read. And it's insanely short!
  
  It's also a pretty good anecdote to show kids why they shouldn't have pet zombies. Kind of like that one movie that was on Netflix, Fido. This novella was going in the way of that movie, I think, and probably would be pretty funny if it did. As it stands now, I was laughing and I loved the ending. Very fitting. For a freebie, this is pretty darn good.
  
  She bites his finger off and he turns into a zombie and then uses a gun (a zombie using a gun!) to wound humans to try and lure her back to his backyard. So romantic!
• 
  Megan

  A self-pub freebie from Smashwords. Compared to other works found on Smashwords this is fantastic. But compared to traditionally published stories... eh, it's all right. The concept is original. A zombie apocalypse survivor ends up chaining zombies in his backyard and discovers their individual quirks. With a little more work, this could be a great story.
  
  Backyard Zombies is free, entertaining and a quick read. Definitely worth checking out.
• 
  Netanella

  People do strange things when they get lonely. Like chain up zombies to the backyard fence and feed them leftovers from the neighbors. Literally.
  
  This one is twisted and short.
• 
  Anne

  Cute! but again, too short to count toward my number of books read. I wish it was longer. I'd like to know what happened to the characters.