Zombies always have been and always will be one of my guilty pleasure forms of entertainment. Nothing quite creeps me out quite like they do, so it made sense to pick this as my first horror read of October. 
 At times I couldn't help but compare Ashes to other books with zombies in them, which makes sense. All of them tend to revolve around similar themes (zombies and the end of the world), so at some point all of them will have something that's familiar. With all of the books that abound, you're going to get that at some point. This book managed to stand out in several ways. One is that Bick has an awesome writing style that creeps under your skin and another is that Bick actually manages to create her zombies with an idea that's never really been done before. The idea of a big "Zap" (EMP wave) taking out so many people and causing zombies is incredibly novel and intriguing to me. 
 I also loved the characters in this book, but I'll admit that I liked a few of the minor characters better than the main character. Alex is well written, but how can anyone resist the standoffish Ellie? (There's another character I also liked, but I won't name them for spoiler reasons.) If Alex represents one of the people who reacts relatively well to a zombie horde (you know there'd have to be at least a few of them), then Ellie represents someone who doesn't. Her character is incredibly natural and easy to relate to, which is why she was one of my personal favorites. 
 This book read like it was the first in a series or trilogy, so I'm looking forward to seeing Bick write another book in this world. It was a little frustrating to see an ending that was sort of cliffhanger-ish, but I've read some of Bick's work before and knew to potentially expect an ending like this. It still didn't keep me from loving the book, though. As far as parents go, rest easy. This book might be a little more realistic than some of the other YA zombie books out there, but it's still far less graphic than your average zombie movie. 
 If you want a nice creepy zombie read for the Halloween season (or any other time of year), this is a must read. 
 EDIT: 
 I just discovered that sure enough, this is the first book in a trilogy. So rest easy knowing that this will be followed up in a future book.