This to me is when The Walking Dead transformed from a solid story with zombies to an amazing story with zombies as the backdrop. And I mean that in the best way possible.

This is a very human story. The focus of this whole series is the people and their lives and how they survive. The other stuff with the zombies and such is cool situation but it is not the focus. For that I am glad, because zombies aren't very interesting to me. And Rick here decides it is time to clear our a prison and use it as a fort. A place where people can sleep, eat, take showers and so on. This is good news, right? Except all hell breaks loose and a little secret, the zombies are the real scary factor anymore, it is the humans.

Betrayal, suicide, love, loss, murder. These are the things that are mainly what this book is about. So many people die here, some horrific ways, some simple and brutal, some vengeful and powerful. Everything works though. Robert Kirkman is able to give us SO many characters yet we all grow attached to a lot of them and feel the emotion they're trying to emote. On top of that the actual situations are interesting and you may keep switching sides on who and who you don't agree with here.

I really love this volume as Rick control as a leader begins to slip. So many characters lose things that the cracks in the foundation of working as a team get larger and larger till nobody can withstand it. It's almost unbearable to read so much carnage but I couldn't look away.

A 5 out of 5.