Thank you Holiday House and Netgalley for this eARC, these opinions are my own. An exciting read! Ian realized that he was in love with his best friend Eric right before he died. The thing is in their small town not everyone who dies, dies for good. They’re not your typical zombies though, they retain who they are and it’s slow starts to slip away from them, they also aren’t after humans. At a run down mall Ian has a seizure and drowns in a fountain. When comes back to awareness he’s alone. The towns been evacuated, including Eric. He meets Angel and she explains they left people behind who weren’t seen as fit. Determined to find Eric and tell him how he feels before he loses himself, Ian sets out, with to friends. But is there more going on than meets the eye? Can he find Eric before it’s too late? And if he does, will Eric return his feelings? A new and interesting take on the undead that added to the thrill of the story! I felt for Ian, but at first I wasn’t sure how I felt about Eric, wasn’t sure where things were going with his character! Interesting concepts and wonderful growth for all the characters! A fast paced read that will have you consuming it!

A really unique read that kept me flip flopping on how things would end. I really enjoyed my time with this book.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for providing me with an eARC in exchange for a fair review.

This one was...wow. I'm not really even sure how to talk about this one. It was good, in a way that's difficult to comprehend. This is a really fascinating take on zombie fiction, used in a way to tell a story about what it means to take up space, be selfish, and live for yourself in a world that wants to leave you behind, especially in the context of chronic illness and neurodivergency. It's an allegory, but it's also very real because the characters actually have disabilities, the zombie thing is just an extra layer of metaphor over a very real story.

And it's good. It's really good. I cried a fair bit while reading because it hit really emotionally intense chords. And the ending built up very slowly and steadily to something that was eerie, surreal, and yet very emotionally resonant.

I think the only thing that pulled it down from a 5 star for me was that I found myself often a bit confused about certain plot points. <spoiler> Like, for example, how did Angel already know that Monica's mom was dead? How did any of them, actually, figure out that she was dead, and hadn't just evacuated from the fire? </spoiler> There were a fair few instances where characters would say something that contradicted something from a few pages ago, or know something that I feel like they had no reason of knowing. And while the romance seems to be a big part of the marketing, I felt like it was pretty muted in comparison to the rest of the story lines going on here, so that was just a little bit disappointing.

That aside, this is really like. Again, it's hard for me to describe exactly what I think about it because it's so surreal in probably the best way possible. I'm not a big horror person and I don't like gore, but I was able to get through the bits of gunk to deeply enjoy my time in this world.

Unbury-your-gays was too effective a catchphrase, huh.

The book itself is primarily about the feelings and experience of disabled people, as our main character has epilepsy and one of the main sidekicks has chronic pain and walks with a cane. The author uses vivid images and feelings to explain this, so I can recommend it to anyone who is interested and wants to see more. The other thing that got me was the tragedy of the romance. My favourite cliché in the world is lovers-to-enemies, and there's an endless amount of angst and pining here, so I got plenty of that in the first half of the book. The body horror part, the description of wounds, blood, and oils was spot on, but the abnormality of the world at the end kind of left me puzzled and lost some hype for me.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher Holiday House for providing me with an ARC!

4.5 stars

Take All of Us is a story about a group of disabled teens left behind in a deserted town, where contaminated water makes people die but not all-the-way-die.
I love zombies so I was really happy to get my hands on this book. It's classified as a horror story but I wasn't really scary, rather unsettling at times. The concept of zombies is really interesting - they are not dangerous, mindless creatures but people who cling to life with all they have. For a short period of time, they retain consciousness and their memories, even though their bodies begin to rot away. It would be perfect if there was one more chapter, a prologue that tells us about the incident that caused the contamination and the daily lives of Kittakoop's citizens.

It was interesting to see how families treated their deceased loved ones. Some of them still cared enough to treat the dead as if they weren't really dead, letting them spend their last moments how they wanted, while the less fortunate ones were abandoned or mercy-killed.

The latter is what Eric wanted to do for Ian. I wish there had been an additional chapter that would have given us a glimpse into their daily lives and allowed us to learn more about their relationship / dynamic. For the most part of the book, we only know Ian's side of the story.
I cannot say more because of spoilers, but their relationship turns out to be very sweet.

"You're worth it to us."

The found family of Monica, Angel and Ian was the best part of the story for me. Together they cope with all challenges that are being thrown their way and although it would be easier for Angel and Monica to abandon Ian, they decide to help him with his last wish.
Now, let me tell you - Ian is a sweetheart and must be protected AT ALL COSTS!
I cared a little less about Zoey and Eric, but they grew on me as the story progressed.

I was left with some questions and the book takes a while to get going (I started getting invested in the story around the 40% mark) but it's definitely worth a read.

Thank you to NetGalley and Holiday House for providing me with an ARC of this book.

Five years after a parasite poisons his hometown's water, Ian, afflicted with chronic migraines, relies on his friend Eric to mercy-kill infected locals. When a government evacuation is triggered, Ian is injured, left behind by Eric. Determined to confront him before succumbing to the parasite, Ian teams up with his childhood rival Monica and jaded prepper Angel. Unbeknownst to them, Eric is also searching for Ian, intending to mercy-kill him.

What sets this YA romance apart is its refreshing take on love admist chaos. Ian and Eric's relationship is heartwarming, and is a sweet reminder of why I enjoy YA romance. Plus, the disability representation adds depth to the characters, proving that survival knows no bounds. The representation was well done, feeling like a cohesive part of the character rather than something tacked on or, on the other side of that spectrum, the character's entire personality.

Leif's world-building is captivating and although it was a slow start I did genuinely enjoy this read. While the pacing might feel a bit off and the dialogue leans towards the middle grade side despite heavy swearing, the book still holds up well.

Overall, "Take All of Us" delivers a fun and creepy YA adventure where the LGBTQ+ characters find happiness and survival. So, if you're in the mood for a zombie-filled journey with a side of wholesome, this book is a must-read!

'Take all of us' by Natalie Leif was recommended to me as a YA book coming out on June 2024. Let me preface this review pointing out that with the language, proportion of telling vs showing, and limited nuance, it feels more Teenage than Young Adult, but it is a fun and enjoyable story nevertheless. My guess is that the classification was influenced by the amount of violence and guts, but those are to be expected in any zombie story, aren't they?

This story features a group of disabled teenagers going on an adventure while leaning on each other in their little found family. The focus is always on their feelings and experiences, and the book does a beautiful work on using its zombies to convey the more extreme cases that their human characters don't get to address. Even when the perspective of caretakers is included, they are more on the side of parentified or glass children, which are also in need of representation and support.

Take my opinion with a grain of salt, since I have no horse in this race, but I highly recommend this book as a breath of fresh air in subjects (disabilities, chronic illnesses, end-of-life issues) still filtered in the majority of mainstream media through the lense of outsiders and how they get inconvenienced.

Thanks to Netgalley and Holiday House for approving this eARC in exchange for an honest review!

Being Autistic, chronically ill, and queer, it isn’t too often I see all of these in one book.

Natalie Leif has constructed a wonderfully creative and gory story, letting disabled kids take up space, to be themselves unapologetically.

I got a little bit lost with the plot at some points, but overall I enjoyed the story, and recommend checking it out upon release!

I was very excited to read this book because I hate when people bury their gays and the idea of a book fixing that was honestly great. I thought the cover art was beautiful and it made me interested immediately. I definitely would not classify this as a horror besides maybe toward the end of the book. I feel like the summary told me more about the setting than the actual story. I felt like I was missing some stuff while reading, besides that I really love the book. I was hoping for a little more vengefulness when Ian got betrayed at the beginning, since it was a "horror," but that's not the type of character he is. The whole book was actually very wholesome, it had like a small chapter of spookiness before being wholesome again and true to its word no gays were buried and everyone was happy. So I definitely recommend this to anyone who just wants a fun adventure where the gays end up happy and alive. Also shout out to Angel, she was my favorite and I don't know if I'm projecting, but she was so autistic coded and I felt that. Take All of Us was very good, but I feel like if it went into a little more detail I would have love it more.

Thank you Netgalley for sending me an ARC of this book.

“They couldn’t afford to get in trouble when their whole existence caused trouble to begin with; when they spent so much time trying to compensate for themselves.”

this review is not spoiler free

I’d been excited for this book because the concept sounded interesting and the cover was gorgeous, and I wasn’t disappointed; I really enjoyed it!! It was a bit slow to start with, and I didn’t really understand what was going on to begin with, especially where the dead were concerned, because being told that someone was dead but then moving around and muttering to themselves made my brain go “huh????” But it made sense once it was explained and I understood what was actually happening. I thought it was a really interesting take on zombies with their immediate returning and them being identifiable by their eyes, and the slow way in which they’d start to lose their memories and degrade. I thought it was really interesting too that there was an entity in the mountain that they were trying to return to, and the way it would sing to them to come home. It may be because I’ve literally obsessively been playing Rebirth, but it reminded me of the way that the Sephiroth clones are drawn to him without having real control of where they’re going, or what they’re doing. I also think it was interesting that them going to the mountain to degrade repeated the cycle as their oil would leak into the water and corrupt it and turn more people into this world’s zombie equivalent. I loved that there was a happy ending too, and that once the entity was destroyed, all the people that were dead, but still “living” got a chance to live again, though they weren’t entirely untouched by what they’d gone through and their eyes still represented that. I really loved the disability rep too and the running theme of being allowed to take up space and to stop feeling guilty for “being a burden” and being selfish and asking for what YOU want instead of thinking about what is best for everyone else because you’ve already asked for “too much” in being alive.

I really loved Ian; I thought he was a really sweet protagonist, and it absolutely broke me to see him die in such an awful way when he’d only wanted to tell his best friend how he felt. It was really heart-breaking watching him try and process the fact that he’d died, especially after living with the fact he’d die earlier than the average age as a disabled kid, and him not wanting to be mercy-killed because he still wanted to live. I loved the development of his relationship with Monica and how he goes from a one-sided rivalry with her to becoming friends and having a really sweet and supportive relationship. I also really loved his dynamic with Angel and how he went from being unsure of her and her monotone and blunt way of speaking to becoming really fond of her. I loved that the two of them became so protective of Ian and they wanted him to be able to have his own choices, despite being dead and “losing himself.” It was heartbreaking to see him start to lose those pieces of himself and forget things, and be leaking oil more often, but that that didn’t change the way his friends saw and interacted with him, and they just tried to help fill in the gaps. I loved the way they all supported each other, and the way they’d developed a fast and unbreakable friendship in the most dire of times. I also really loved Ian’s dynamic with his best friend, Eric. I would have liked to have seen their dynamic when Ian was still alive a bit more before he dies as he died really early into the book and I felt like I didn’t get a real sense of how they interacted beforehand, and then we didn’t see much of Eric until around half way through the book, but I loved seeing how they interacted after that, even though it physically broke me to see Eric struggle so much.

It was really clear from the moment that Eric first saw Ian again how much him being dead affected him and how traumatising it was for him. He blamed himself for what happened, and it breaks me when they finally properly reunite and they have the conversation about it. It also destroyed me to see Eric try to mercy kill Ian to “make things right” and how he couldn’t actually do it when he had the opportunity because it broke him too much. It was so clear how much Eric loved Ian too, even before we got to see them reunite, the essential shrine that Eric had of all the stuff Ian had given him over the years and their pictures together, it was so clear that Eric loved him back and had just suppressed that like he did the rest of his emotions. It hurt me to see Eric in so much pain after everything that had happened, but considering how much he’d blunted his own emotions and stopped himself expressing them due to his tumultuous relationship with his father, it was nice to see him able to actually express his emotions and his pain, even if a huge chunk of that is likely due to the fact he was so traumatised and felt so guilty about Ian’s death that he was unable to suppress his emotions anymore. It destroyed me to think about the fact that he blamed himself so much and was so hurt by it that he’d literally just curled up in the mall to die, and that’s how Zoey had found him, and damn, I’m glad she did. I’m really glad that Eric and Ian got to reunite properly around the 50% mark and that they actually stayed together because it was killing me not knowing what had actually happened and Ian being torn between angry and blaming Eric, and missing him and wanting to talk to him, and I just really wanted to know what had gone through Eric’s head when he’d briefly seen Ian at the store. I really loved Eric too, bless his heart, he was such a sweet character, even though he hadn’t been allowed to be sweet, and it hurt when he confessed his feelings to Ian thinking he wasn’t lucid enough to actually hear him, and him saying all the bad things he felt about himself. And it was so cute too to see him so embarrassed and always blushing when they both knew how they felt about the other and were more affectionate with each other. It made me laugh so much when Ian tentatively calls him his boyfriend and Eric is blushing like “we’re boyfriends” and Zoey is like “YOU WERENT ALREADY???? YOU WOULDN’T STOP TELLING ME HOW MUCH YOU LOVED HIM” Bless. I’m so happy that they got their happy ending together and were allowed to actually be happy.

My favourite character was absolutely Angel. I loved her so much. I loved the way that she tried to encourage Ian and Monica to take up space and stop apologising for their existences. I resonated a lot with her and her clearly autistic traits, and I think it was sweet the way she showed that she cared about Ian in her own way. I also related to her not caring about the evacuation and choosing to stay behind because she liked and wanted the quiet, and that she hated how loud the world usually was, and how overwhelming it had been.

I would have liked to have seen Ian reunite with his family at the end, especially after the phone call he’d had with his parents and sister, and how she’d asked him if he was still alive and he’d said no, but I did love that the focus was more on found family instead.

All in all, I really enjoyed this book and am excited for the physical release (that cover is so pretty), and will absolutely read anything else the author writes.

{2,5}

I really wanted to like this book but for me it was a tad bit plain. Based on the description I thought I would like it, but it was just ok.

This book had such a unique take on a “zombie” novel. To be dead without being “all-the-way dead”. Ian, our main character, is an epileptic who dies in a mall water fountain after a seizure. He wakes up knowing he is dead, but not ready to leave his life yet without telling his best friend that he loves him. Along the way, he teams up with Monica and Angel. Two girls that are imperative to him taking his first steps forward in his “new life”. I absolutely loved Angel and Monica, to be honest. I really adored their personalities, I thought they were well-written and different. Ian was good though, however I found myself liking the side characters more. The characters in this book are what holds it together. They were incredibly complex and their relationships were believable and wholesome.
To be honest, I wasn't such a fan of how abrupt it started, but in time it went more okay.
However, I really enjoyed the author's use of italic and bold text, which made the book more engaging and easier to read.

Thank you so much to NetGalley for giving me the opportunity to read this book in advance!

This book was not quite what I expected but it was a really great read!

Something weird is happening to people who die in a small West Virginian town: their bodies take a while to realize they're dead, leaving friends and family to wander around until they fall apart or are put down for good. We follow Ian, a teenage boy who has spent his life being careful and managing seizures. During an evacuation, an accident leaves Ian dead, alone, and searching for answers about what happened. As he searches for his best friend and secret crush, he teams up with other teen misfits who have also been left behind.

I really enjoyed how the story jumped right in, no explanation or lengthly info drops about this weird infection that causes the dead to stick around. It's a mystery to the characters, and also just an excepted part of life by the point we see them in the story. This helped create an atmosphere of mystery and uncertainty. I wish we could have dug into the characters a bit more, but I enjoyed watching this misfit teens come together to try and survive. There were also a number of times when I teared up, which is a win to me.

The message of the story was a bit on the nose, in that it was stated pretty clearly. This doesn't always work for me, but it's a message I think is important so I was happy to just roll with it.

While I would characterize this novel as horror, it's not incredibly terrifying. There are some moments of body horror and the situation itself if pretty horrific, but I wouldn't say I was scared. More unsettled- which works well for me.

The characters in this book are what holds it together. They were incredibly complex and their relationships were believable and wholesome (ignoring the cannibalism). I do wish we saw more of the dog, it seemed sweet. I am a sucker for found family so the book was always going to have an advantage.

The writing was good, but the plot moved quite slowly at times and I found myself struggling to keep my attention in the last 15% percent of the book. I found some of the plot points as well as the resolution quite confusing in how they actuallu worked, the story is quite short (around 250 pages) so some mechanics of the paranormal aspects aren't very well explained.

If you are going to read this book, read it for the characters, not the plot. All in all, it's a wholesome YA paranormal romance even if it falls flat in some areas.

(3.5/5)

I loved the world building in this and the mystery behind the parasite in the mountains so much! The characters are also delightful, I loved all of them with my whole heart. Sadly, this book is kind of... debut-y at times - I found the pacing a little off, the characters and their relationships could all have used a little more time to BREATHE and exist. I barely knew Eric, or Ian, for that matter, before everything suddenly happened, and the friendships between Angel, Monica and Ian went from zero to best friends forever in what felt like ten minutes. Still, I feel like the author is gonna write some amazing stuff in their next book.

This is an amazing book. It's gut-wrenching, it's transcendent, it's gross, it's beautiful....it's practically everything. The writing is absolutely stellar--I found myself highlighting constantly, and I rarely do that with any books. And each of the characters is so exquisitely and carefully crafted--you feel for each of them almost immediately. Leif also heart-wrenchingly shows how our ableist society has infiltrated all of the interior thoughts and actions of the main queer, epileptic character (as well as other disabled and/or neurodivergent secondary characters). It can be very hard to read at times, but the novel fights against those voices so furiously that it's all worth it in the end.

Take All of Us is perfect for those seeking a story following a misfit group of kids saving their town from the apocolypse. Themes, which include found friendship, adventure, horror and romance make this YA novel a warm hug. Even with the gore, I found myself amazed at the way Natalie Leif explains the undead almost in a whimsical, fascination for them.
I wish there was a chapter or two at the beginning of the book going through a day in their life before the events of where the book actually began. I think this would have added context that would allow an easier transition into the first chapter with Mr. Owens. Without understanding the undead and the dynamic of Monica/Ian and Eric/Ian, I think the book was harder to follow and too quick to start because of lack of context.
Even though it was fast to begin, I found myself enjoying following the characters through their town and discovering the truths of the evacuation that left them the only ones left.
My favourite part of the book was the message of 'taking up space'. I especially think Natalie Leif did an exceptional job at portraying this within a disabled persons point of view and even extending it through a queer lense as well. It added an extra strength within Ian, to use his past experiences in the healthcare system to overcome his problems.

Thank you NetGalley for an ARC of Take All of Us in exchange for an honest review!!

Y’all. This book was so special. An utterly one-of-a-kind take on the zombie apocalypse with empowerment, coming-of-age and found family sprinkled in. I don’t usually cry at books, but this one got me. I literally felt like Ian at the very end, going “no, hold on a little longer, I don’t want to be done yet!!!”

I’ve seen some reviews say that this book is slow. It is, but I believe it’s intentional. It takes a bit to figure out that savoring every second is the entire point of the book, but part that, it’s like a terribly heart-aching warm hug.

What a worthy addition to the queer horror genre, that I give a whole-hearted recommendation for!

This was a very fast read, nice and short. All the characters are very likable. I do wish that there was more backstory or maybe flashbacks with the characters pre evacuation. The beginning was a bit rough for me to get into, almost felt middle grade, but at like 25% it got into young adult feels. Also these teens are more put together than me because I would be panicking like crazy in a zombie like evacuation. Spoiler: I didn’t care for the mountain being alive. I knew it would come back to the mountain but it being alive just didn’t make full sense to me. But it did give us Ian alive again so I guess I can’t complain two much.

A fun but downright spooky at times novel featuring queer, disabled teens left behind in an emergency evacuation. Together this rag-tag group attempt to find out what's really going on in their small town and learn to live selfishly for once. Overall, I absolutely loved this novel.
The disability and queer representation feels real, in fact I found a lot of my own experience as a teen in one of the characters. I loved how characters are described between the tapping of a characters cane, the flat voice of another, or the way seizures are described. The arc our man character goes through to put aside his selfless, martyr ways and take up space for once got me to reflect on my own life. I did feel the end reveal of what's happening to be a bit out of left field but I still enjoyed it as a plot element. I didn't quite understand why oil was so prevalent and it felt at times set up to make the end confrontation easier. But the things I disliked are few and far between compared to how much I enjoyed everything else.
I'd highly recommend this book to any disabled person, queer person, or anyone who just likes fun YA horror. Definitely going to be purchasing a copy on release!

I received a copy of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

The story is as follows something is harming the people within the town of Kittakoop and it has something to do with the towns water. When Ian winds up as one of the undead he must go on a journey to hopefully give his heart to the boy of his dreams while also battling losing himself and his mind. Can Ian make it and will Eric return the feelings for him at the end?

I decided to give this a chance because I loved the overall concept and premise and wanted to read something that felt like a movie I enjoyed Warm Bodies. I think one of the great selling points about this book is that it uses the message of the undead as a Trojan horse to really talk about how we tend to throw away or give up on the disabled community. The main character deals with epilepsy and this unfortunately leads to his death which he struggles with throughout the book even when he finds the love of his life he has to accept that his reaction is valid towards his change as a person. I think the story was mostly romance and inner turmoil with a side of the horror or zombie plot which if you came into this book expecting romance to be at the forefront, much like I did with Warm Bodies, you'll enjoy it a bit better. I will say that the book does plop us right into the thick of the story and we sort of learn through it the characters stories, personalities and everything between is sort of taught to us throughout this book. I found the side stories sort of just present but not all the time necessary. Ian's issues with Monica felt just present but random was interesting because I think it was supposed to give the lead some form of negative traits but it didn't really amount to anything and I would have loved for him to acknowledge how that may have caused harm towards his relationship with her outside of this, but I will say that I enjoyed the relationship that forms between this ragtag group of friends that come from different or diverse experiences and have different ways of handling or reacting to the leads change in dead/undead status. I also found the romantic engagement very sweet and luckily I enjoyed that because that was legit the main point of the story and everything else sort of took a backseat to the pining, the desire for each other, the hurt and the discovery of mutual attraction. All these points were present for a lion-share of the story and we don't really get into the reasoning for why the water is a problem until closer to the third act of the book.

All in all, the book is a great time if you have a taste for romance but you will be disappointed if your expectation was more survival horror and them trying to make sense of their unfortunate situation versus this being a story about romantic engagement and the building of friendships. Don't get me wrong they have a lot of great moments that are directly correlated to the zombie story but romance drives this vehicle.