The Walking Dead: The Road to Woodbury (The Walking Dead Series, 2) Mass Market Paperback – April 29, 2014

Kirkman's novel of The Walking Dead series was gripping and highly addictive. I finished both novels, The Road to Woodbury and The Rise of the Governor in four to five hours each. Character development was the most important factor to contribute to my 5++++++ star rating. Not only was the plot well thought out and researched. It was highly realistic given the situation that walking zombies were roaming Earth. Characters die, and wouldn't that happen in real life? But, it isn't just that we see ordinary background characters die, just like the TV series, the characters we like WILL die. And, that doesn't discourage me, on the contrary, I was compelled into the story.I really wish Kirkman would write the whole series with Rick Grimes in regular novel form rather than the graphic novel comic form. PLEASE!!

Good story that will continue to the 3rd installment. The Governor’s story is interesting, and I hope it will end at the point of his chapter in either the comics or the show.

The Road to Woodbury was easy to read and kept a good pace throught the entire book. The authors, Robert Kirkman and Jay Bonansinga, have excellent vocabularies, which I think helped keeping this book moving and enthralling. This is not merely a post-apocalyptic hack-and-slash. At this stage in the storyline, people are just figuring out what has happened and are unaware of any future resolution. One could easily relate to at least one aspect of each character, giving the reader the opportunity to think about how they would respond in the same scenarios. Glimpses of the darker sides of people developed, in believable progression, into what eventually motivates them from this point forward.I think that this book could have been joined with the previous, Rise of the Governor, into one, large tome. I don't know if it should have been, but that adequately describes how the two fit nicely together. You could read either one in no particular oder and still be satisfied.Both books are definitely for mature audiences. But the mature content was not handled in a gratuitous manner - everything written was essential to the storyline.Reading this book on the Kindle was pleasant and the Kindle edition is Text to Speech enabled, so kudos to the publisher for that.

The biggest single factor for me in rating a book is its ability to keep me engaged. From the time I started reading this until I finished, I was never bored and did not want to wait to read more whenever I just had to stop due to some other commitment.A big part of the story is the love affair involving Josh Hamilton and Lilly Caul. Lilly is convinced she is a coward and this conviction haunts her. Josh loves her dearly and is determined to help her overcome her fears.Of course, there’s a lot to fear in Zombieland. Those biters, roamers, walkers, whatever you call them, just keep coming. They are always hungry and their teeth are always chomping. The plague and its aftermath has left pockets of people struggling to survive in a horrible world. This sort of thing brings out both the best, and the worst, in people. Authors Robert Kirkman and Jay Bonangina are masters at developing the theme of the impact of desperate times on people.We get some background work on the Governor. He’s one nasty dude in this book. There’s none of that kinder, gentler Governor that we have seen in recent television episodes. There’s also a lot about the mechanics of how Woodbury worked.I feel it’s a fitting companion to the AMC series.

I guess I'm just getting used to Bonansinga's odd excuse for a writing style. "The Road to Woodbury" is surprisingly written in a way that doesn't slog like its predecessor. Even though the beginning, pre-Woodbury story is a bit of a chore, seeing familiar names like Bob Stookey and Martinez make everything feel relevant and worth the journey.Even though I start this review with praise, it doesn't mean that the little details and issues don't affect the novel's overall quality. I'd honestly give the novel's plot a solid 4 stars, but the ridiculous metaphors and similes rear their ugly head (and Bonansinga's thesaurus gets another hefty workout).Bonansinga seems to find words that he likes a lot, then he proceeds to sprinkle them throughout the narrative. His greatest hits include "thunderstruck," "erect," "crestfallen", "telltale", and my personal favorite, "half-ajar" (which is just flat out silly). He's an author that desperately needs an editor. He has a bad habit of referring to characters by their first and last names (I affectionately refer to this as "Charlie Brown Syndrome"). He writes like he's only doing so to fill a word count and deadline. However, I applaud the length of this novel. It's far more concise and feels less bloated.The humanizing of The Governor is quite unbelievable. I don't buy it for a bit. It's hard to believe that the man we know from the comic struggled with any sort of mental or emotional conflict. I'm a big hater of "revisionist tales" that try to tell a prequel story that alters what we already know. This despicable man is not one who'd vomit after the rape of another character. It's ludicrous and almost insulting.The redeeming aspect, and probably my favorite part of the novel, is the journey of Bob Stookey. A derelict drunk in both the comic and show, he's given a pretty great reason for his behavior in other media.As with "Rise of the Governor", the majority of the characters are flat and borderline useless. The book would have you believe that everyone in the southeast is a football loving pothead. If you see a name you're not familiar with in one of these novels, don't get attached to them. They're cannon fodder indefinitely. Luckily, through the murder of several characters that don't matter, Lilly is given more of reason to perform her inevitable duty in the comics (and probably the final novel of the "trilogy"). Her journey is far more compelling than the lame tale spun for The Governor.At the beginning of reading this novel, I expected more of the same. I declared that on my deathbed, I'd ask for the time back that I lost to reading this novel series. I have to take it back... at least for this iteration.

Kann die Bauch reihe nur weiter emphelen, für jeden Walking Dead ein muss es zu Lesen.

I finish the story in 2 days and I buy next part too.

Not a bad series as a spin off from TWD.

Jay Bonansinga is the real writer of Robert Kirkman's world in this series of books based on the comic and the TV show. It's incredibly well written and since I know Bonansinga's work from other books, I recognized the style. He's a wordsmith and the writing is not low-life at all, which I, as a reader, appreciate. This book of the novel series. I've read two so far and have purchased the 3rd and will get the 4th (which is a part 2). What I like most as compared to the TV show is that most of the time the characters are NOT doing something stupid. I think a novel can deal with situations better than a TV show which is both visual and time-restricted per episode. Anyone who loves the TV series or loves zombies will love this. I did!

Bonne suite de The Rise of the Governor. On y découvre les personnages de Lilly et Megan qui marqueront l'histoire de The Walking Dead à coup sûr!