Paul Tremblay, you son of a gun, you’ve done it again. Survivor Song was easily one of my most anticipated reads of 2020. After multiple swings and misses to get my hands on an ARC, release day arrived and my copy arrived safe and sound. The synopsis is almost two-fold. One, a variation of the rabies virus, dubbed ‘super-rabies’ in the story wreaks havoc in Massachusetts turning infected people and animals into zombies. Two - Natalie, a pregnant woman who has been infected, and her friend Dr. Ramola Sherman navigate the swirling out of control landscape to try and seek medical care for Natalie and her unborn baby.

I say the synopsis is two-fold because despite the beginning-of-the-end events that Tremblay takes us through, this is very much the story of the friendship of two women. Tremblay takes the epic event of an impending apocalypse and brings it down to the smallest imaginable scale. At any given time, the reader has no idea just how widespread this issue is, and it’s left to the rumor mill and speculation how it’s affecting other people and areas. Instead we’re treated to a very introspective look at the way it directly affects Natalie and Rams.

This was an odd one for me, and I can’t think of a better word to describe it than sneaky. For Tremblay’s last few books, namely Head Full of Ghosts, Disappearance at Devil’s Rock, and Cabin at the End of the World, I found myself drawn in from page one. I read each from the edge of my seat, and most in a matter of a couple days. With Survivor Song, I enjoyed the ride at the beginning and it held my attention, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that it wasn’t up to the quality of some earlier books. It wasn’t til about 2/3rds of the way through that I realized Tremblay had sunk the hooks into me when I wasn’t looking and I cared about the characters and was absolutely invested in every inch of their journey, even two characters introduced about halfway through that I found obnoxious at first. Tremblay unquestionably knows what he’s doing there. By the time, it was over - I was sold.

I’ve mentioned it already, but I truly believe it’s the small scale, and the isolation on display that makes this book so effective. Paul Tremblay is doing some very interesting things with horror fiction and narrative, and not only does it make him an insta-buy author, it excites the average horror reader to see what comes next. What can this author do with another sub-genre, another trope to allow us, the readers, to see it in a new and interesting light? No pressure, man.

I’d recommend this highly to people who have enjoyed Tremblay’s previous books - what he can do with a story is on display once again. Beyond that, fans of character-driven horror will enjoy themselves and even though it’s not coming-of-age, it hits a lot of the same beats that coming-of-age horror does. Last but not least, fans of zombie lit will find that Survivor Song offers a new look at the genre, if not the monsters.