KT Volante’s After the World Flipped picks up right where When the World Flipped left off, with Lucy about to be attacked by LD (the walking dead).

The opening scene proves that Volante knows how to pack a real punch on his story. In both of his zombie novels, there is never a dull moment. Even when his characters aren’t busy fighting zombies, they’re busy strategizing to protect themselves from the undead or other humans who would take what’s theirs.

In the first novel, readers watched as Lacey and her friends escaped from a hospital when the zombie epidemic began. We saw them reach safety, find other survivors, and establish a small community in a closed compound. However, their survival requires venturing outside of their enclosure to find food, clothing, and other necessities, and on one such adventure, while gathering food from a nearby garden, Lucy, one of the few children among the survivors, ends up in a situation chilling in what is about to become the LD’s lunch.

I won’t reveal what happens in this opening scene, but I will say that adjusting to this new normal isn’t easy for any of the characters, especially the kids. Volante doesn’t just give us endless rollercoaster rides through the dangers of his zombie world; he also delves into the psyche of the characters and how they cope with his new normal. For example, he shows us how Kevin, one of the other children, manages to know that it is his birthday and that no one remembers it because his parents are dead. Fortunately, Lacey and her classmates team up to come up with a plan to cheer him up.

We also witness many encounters and difficult parts between the characters. In the first novel, Lacey and her friends rescued four nuns and brought them to the compound. The nuns have their own way of doing things that is not always compatible with the way Lacey, who is the leader, does things, so they experience some conflict. However, they also respect each other’s abilities and try to work together. When the Sisters learn that some of their fellow nuns have survived at their Motherhouse and decide they want to move there, there are some heartwarming parting scenes and then some real surprises.

The biggest problem survivors face, aside from LDs, is that as their community grows, new members are not always willing to play by the rules. As a result, when the leader of another compound challenges Lacey’s authority, his family group moves closer to civil war. While the LDs continue to be the obvious and visible enemy, Lacey now discovers that his biggest threat might be from his fellow survivors.

And yet, in the midst of all this new normality, there are happy moments of celebration and also of falling in love. Despite all the horrors, the human spirit continues, adjusting and finding a way to survive even when it is discovered that upon death, humans will now become LD due to the virus.

To say more about After the World Flipped would be revealing too much. Suffice it to say that if you like zombie novels, Volante’s books are worth a read. They provide a much more realistic portrayal of what life would be like for the survivors than most zombie movies out there. All the thrills and chills are here, but so is a well thought out depiction of real life for the average people left alive.