Justina Ireland’s Dread Nation Packs a Punch

Our protagonist, seventeen-year-old Jane McKeene, was born two days before the plague began. As the biracial black daughter of a rich white woman, Jane’s opportunities are limited. She can’t hide on her mother’s land forever, and even her mom’s status can’t protect her from laws like the Native and Negro Education Act. Jane, like other Native and black girls, is made to attend combat school to prepare for life as an Attendant: trained protectors of the wealthy white women of high society, who wield guns, blades, and anything else that might help them put down the dead.
Jane wishes for a different life, but she’s pragmatic and understands the realities of her position in this world. When her ex-boyfriend, Red Jack, shows up asking for help searching for his missing sister, Jane knows she shouldn’t get involved—but she’s also fiercely loyal and brave. Along with Katherine, her nemesis from school, Jane and Red Jack find themselves in Summerland, a western outpost that’s supposed to be Shambler-free.
But this is far from the usual take on the wild west, and something rotten is hiding in the seemingly perfect town. Jane puts her life on the line to expose these ugly truths, and soon, the dead are the least of her worries.
Like stories about alien invasions, the zombie genre isn’t always about the creature set on ending the world as we know it. It’s more about what societies do in direct reaction to inhuman attack. If you’re a fan of The Walking Dead, you’ll love Jane’s tendency to get into trouble, and a little too close to the ruinous grasp of the undead. In Dread Nation, the “shamblers” could be anyone. Your class and race don’t matter—the dead are the dead. As Jane navigates first combat school and then Summerland, she thinks about this often. Is she just a weapon? If the dead weren’t undead, what would happen to a girl like her? 
Ireland said she wrote Dread Nation “many moons ago,” after reading Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. In an interview for Bustle, she acknowledges that sure, it was cool to see a montage of well-to-do women fighting, but it didn’t ring realistic. Ireland said, “It would’ve been black women fighting in the streets.” And so Miss Preston’s School of Combat and the Native and Negro Education Act were created.
The worldbuilding here is well-thought out and profound. Ireland considers every person’s place and function in this society, not too far removed from the current events of 2018. And her eerie vision of Summerland is both an idyllic paradise for a certain kind of people, that uses black lives as expendable labor, and a microcosm of the greater Union.
Despite the high stakes and ever-encroaching zombie hordes, Jane maintains a dry sense of humor necessary to retain a bit of light in a dark time. Jane is more than just handy with a set of sickles; she’s clever and stubborn because she knows it’s the only way to survive. At its heart, Dread Nation is the must-read epic story of a girl against the world, just trying to find her way home.