Book Review: The Night Sweeper by J. Steven Butler

So I've been in a bit of a book slump lately. The past 3 weeks I keep picking up books and casting them to the side. It's not that they are bad books. In fact at least two of them were from some of my favorite authors. I just couldn't seem to find a book that would catch me. You know keep my interest and keep me wanting to read. I randomly scrolled through my ereader before settling on The Night Sweeper by J. Steven Butler. THANK GOD! Finally, a book that kept me reading and wanting more!

The Night Sweeper takes place in a post-apocalyptic dystopian world. The streets are not safe at night for that is the time that the zombies or Festers as they are called roam the streets. Cray is a night sweeper. He hunts Festers to help make things safer in what was one New York. Soon the threat of another virus outbreak has Cray teaming up with a beautiful woman named Mira. Only problem is that Cray doesn't have much experience talking to women and becomes a complete buffoon around them. Mira has some dark secrets. The two are led on a journey and learn there is more to what happened during the first virus outbreak than anyone knew.

Ok so it should be pretty obvious that I enjoyed this book by the simple fact that it is the first one I was able to finish without having to force myself. Even though there are zombies or Festers as they are called in the book this is not really a zombie book. This is more like a thriller with dystopian, politics, genetics, a bit of zombies, romance, and adventure all thrown into one book.

At first I did not like the character of Cray. His reactions around Mira were that of a 14 year old boy not a 24 year old man. But it soon became clear that he was like a teenage boy because he literally had no experience around women at all. The more he became comfortable around her the more I liked him. I loved Mira from the start. She is a complex character who kicks ass (literally).

Let me state something...I HATE head hopping. As in first person perspective that changes. I like to stick with one persons persepective. J. Steven Butler uses head hopping in this book BUT and this is a huge but he did it right. Yep, this was one of the few books where I didn't mind the head hopping at all. Why? Because he kept with the same character for a few chapters before switching heads to the other character for a few chapters. I hate when head hopping happens in the same chapter or now the monotonous every other chapter. Having a few chapters (it was probably three to four per person) didn't make the change obvious and gimmicky. When the change happened you were ready to see what was going on with the other person. Plus it allowed for them to be seperate for parts of the book (though for the most part they were together the whole time). So listen up authors if you want to know how to head hop look at what he did here cause this is how it should be done. Throw away the gimmicks, don't change in the same chapter, and only do it if it actually adds something to the story.

So now for my rating. Well I started off the book at right about a 4 but ended at a 5. Only question now is when oh when is the next book? Cause I can't wait to read it!

I just wish more people knew about this book