What do you think?
Rate this book
Not Dead in the Heart of Dixie
Welcome to Kapper Hill Compound, home to a family of average, everyday people trying to survive in a Post Apocalyptic World destroyed by strange disease, ruthless dictators, and foreign invasion. Join this non-stop roller coaster ride of pain, suffering, love, and laughter. This lengthy work of art is action packed, with twists and turns around every corner. You will live the story with them, learn valuable lessons from them, and cry out for more.
696 pages, Paperback
First published March 22, 2014
3 people are currently reading
423 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
July 28, 2015
What a good read...
I am an avid reader. When I first read the description of this book, I thought naw, not for me. I don't much care for the diary format and I was unsure of the subject matter. Boy was I surprised! I simply love it! The narration is simple, I like all the lists of looted goods or army supplies. Makes it more real. I am a southerner too, and I especially enjoyed their meal descriptions, pinto beans & onions...yum...not so much the rice...lol..
The author has a good imagination and this story really flows...love the characters and I'm so glad their family has been together so far.
I'm off to the next book in this series...if you're looking for a good can't stop reading, have to know what's happening next read, them you will truly enjoy this book.
I am an avid reader. When I first read the description of this book, I thought naw, not for me. I don't much care for the diary format and I was unsure of the subject matter. Boy was I surprised! I simply love it! The narration is simple, I like all the lists of looted goods or army supplies. Makes it more real. I am a southerner too, and I especially enjoyed their meal descriptions, pinto beans & onions...yum...not so much the rice...lol..
The author has a good imagination and this story really flows...love the characters and I'm so glad their family has been together so far.
I'm off to the next book in this series...if you're looking for a good can't stop reading, have to know what's happening next read, them you will truly enjoy this book.
May 24, 2014
This is absolutely the best book I've ever read!! It is written in diary form and is as yo follow. It sucked me in to he point that I felt like family to the characters. It is very well written and played on all of my emotions!! I laughed and cried and felt like I was living the story line! I can't begin to make anyone understand how good this book was!!! You will understand when you read it!!!
June 17, 2017
Real People with Common Sense
Loved this book. I don't usually read books written in diary format but this was wonderful. I liked Robin a lot, probably because I identified with her age, loyalty to family, nurturing (get everyone fed!), a little selfish (aren't we all), and she hasn't always finished her projects. I only wish they had at least burned one meal or it didn't taste great. I liked all of the characters. This is the second time I have read this book in the last couple of years. I highly recommend it.
Loved this book. I don't usually read books written in diary format but this was wonderful. I liked Robin a lot, probably because I identified with her age, loyalty to family, nurturing (get everyone fed!), a little selfish (aren't we all), and she hasn't always finished her projects. I only wish they had at least burned one meal or it didn't taste great. I liked all of the characters. This is the second time I have read this book in the last couple of years. I highly recommend it.
Read
March 31, 2023rtc
July 31, 2014
My thanks to Goodreads Firstreads and the author for a complimentary copy of the book to read and review.
More like 3.5 stars. First, what I liked about this book. I really REALLY liked the female POV. I'm so tired of over militarized men who strut and posture about how great they are when it comes to surviving a zombie apocalypse. I really enjoyed hearing about it from a woman's perspective, especially since the MC in question is a Southern woman and I am not from that area, so it was interesting to see how someone from that part of America would deal with a tragedy of the scope of "the end of the world as we know it". I enjoyed the diary format as well, it moved the story along and some may complain that it was a bit of info dumping, and it was to a certain degree, but it wasn't bad. Some complain that things a person writing in a diary would know, like explaining family relations made no sense and I disagree. If I was in an end of the world scenario, I would write like that. For posterity, to pass my knowledge to the next generation, hoping that someone would use the knowledge that I was writing. I would want to introduce myself to the person reading the diary. At the end of the book, she addresses the possible future reader of her diary, so she's acknowledging that she's not just writing the diary for her mental benefit, but for the possible benefit of others.
Now, the stuff I didn't like so much. This book is HUGE. 700 pages. I had to read it at a desk so the desk would support the book. I admit, I skipped about 100-200 pages and didn't miss much other than the explanation of the HDI flies. Skipping pages isn't an indicator of a bad book, I skipped about the same amount of pages in Harry Potter 5 and 7. However, an editor with a liberal red pen would have made the book a little less repetitive.
Also, there was a LOT of stuff going on in this book and I'm sorry, but I HIGHLY doubt that both China AND North Korea, dealing with the HDI (zombie) menace too would have been able to launch an assault against America that was as successful as it seemed to be in the book. China has a TON of people. A rabies type infection that yielded zombies would be a huge problem for them. They would be too worried about survival than to focus on taking out America. The book did state that the HDI issue was a world-wide problem, yet all of the people were busy attacking their human enemies and not the undead ones. Not overly believable to me, sorry.
The author is not afraid to kill off characters if they are in the wrong place at the wrong time. I was surprised at some of the people that she killed off. Not in a bad way, it made the book feel more real.
I wonder where she is taking the "evolving" or "mutant" HDIs thing. I am curious enough to want to read the next book and it seems that the next book isn't quite as long, so I am more willing to consider picking it up.
This is the second book in a row that was written I diary format after the zombie apocalypse happened and this one was MUCH better. The characters in this one are not cardboard cutouts. They have depth and feelings and personality. You truly care about the characters and get nervous when they go out on raids to loot stuff.
Oh, another thing I found slightly unbelievable. They were looting, along with other groups, military, fake military and other survivor groups and they found almost everything they needed and more besides not very far from their compound. How many Wally Worlds (another gripe, it was called WalMart in the book. When I was down in Georgia for training for a few months, it was ALWAYS referred to as Wally World) and Big Lots and Loews ARE there in her neck of the woods? I wasn't buying it, not for a second. Also, for that many stores, there would have been way more people and cars clogging the roads. It was way too easy for them to get around and find what they needed.
All in all, not a bad addition to the zombie survival genre. I enjoyed it.
More like 3.5 stars. First, what I liked about this book. I really REALLY liked the female POV. I'm so tired of over militarized men who strut and posture about how great they are when it comes to surviving a zombie apocalypse. I really enjoyed hearing about it from a woman's perspective, especially since the MC in question is a Southern woman and I am not from that area, so it was interesting to see how someone from that part of America would deal with a tragedy of the scope of "the end of the world as we know it". I enjoyed the diary format as well, it moved the story along and some may complain that it was a bit of info dumping, and it was to a certain degree, but it wasn't bad. Some complain that things a person writing in a diary would know, like explaining family relations made no sense and I disagree. If I was in an end of the world scenario, I would write like that. For posterity, to pass my knowledge to the next generation, hoping that someone would use the knowledge that I was writing. I would want to introduce myself to the person reading the diary. At the end of the book, she addresses the possible future reader of her diary, so she's acknowledging that she's not just writing the diary for her mental benefit, but for the possible benefit of others.
Now, the stuff I didn't like so much. This book is HUGE. 700 pages. I had to read it at a desk so the desk would support the book. I admit, I skipped about 100-200 pages and didn't miss much other than the explanation of the HDI flies. Skipping pages isn't an indicator of a bad book, I skipped about the same amount of pages in Harry Potter 5 and 7. However, an editor with a liberal red pen would have made the book a little less repetitive.
Also, there was a LOT of stuff going on in this book and I'm sorry, but I HIGHLY doubt that both China AND North Korea, dealing with the HDI (zombie) menace too would have been able to launch an assault against America that was as successful as it seemed to be in the book. China has a TON of people. A rabies type infection that yielded zombies would be a huge problem for them. They would be too worried about survival than to focus on taking out America. The book did state that the HDI issue was a world-wide problem, yet all of the people were busy attacking their human enemies and not the undead ones. Not overly believable to me, sorry.
The author is not afraid to kill off characters if they are in the wrong place at the wrong time. I was surprised at some of the people that she killed off. Not in a bad way, it made the book feel more real.
I wonder where she is taking the "evolving" or "mutant" HDIs thing. I am curious enough to want to read the next book and it seems that the next book isn't quite as long, so I am more willing to consider picking it up.
This is the second book in a row that was written I diary format after the zombie apocalypse happened and this one was MUCH better. The characters in this one are not cardboard cutouts. They have depth and feelings and personality. You truly care about the characters and get nervous when they go out on raids to loot stuff.
Oh, another thing I found slightly unbelievable. They were looting, along with other groups, military, fake military and other survivor groups and they found almost everything they needed and more besides not very far from their compound. How many Wally Worlds (another gripe, it was called WalMart in the book. When I was down in Georgia for training for a few months, it was ALWAYS referred to as Wally World) and Big Lots and Loews ARE there in her neck of the woods? I wasn't buying it, not for a second. Also, for that many stores, there would have been way more people and cars clogging the roads. It was way too easy for them to get around and find what they needed.
All in all, not a bad addition to the zombie survival genre. I enjoyed it.
May 19, 2014
I received the book for free through Goodreads First Reads.
I have to start out by saying that this is the first "zombie" or "apocalypse" type book that I have read. That being said I really wasn't impressed. The book is written in a diary format by Robin, who is a middle-aged women struggling survive with her family after the world as she knows it has basically come to be non-existent.
I struggled to read the first 100-150 pages of this book, once I stopped paying attention to the timeline it became a little easier. It was just very hard to believe that the entire world fell apart do to this "HDI" virus in a matter of a few weeks. It was also a little difficult to keep up with who was who and came from where once they started running into people and bringing them home. I had trouble connecting with the characters and their stories, I believe due to the fact that their were so many of them.
As the story progressed it did seem to get a little more interesting and the emotions that the people were experiencing did seem to be legitimate, and the actual emotions that some should feel if they were in that situation. However as it progress it started getting more and more far fetched, and again the time frame for all of the events taking place was very short. Between the "HDI's" taking over the world and then being mysteriously drawn to a near-by rock quarry, to then mutating and becoming more intelligent, to WW3, and then a civil war.... all within a span of approximately 6 months, it really was hard to believe that it was actually happening.
Not a book that I would recommend for someone that doesn't normally read "zombie" books.
I have to start out by saying that this is the first "zombie" or "apocalypse" type book that I have read. That being said I really wasn't impressed. The book is written in a diary format by Robin, who is a middle-aged women struggling survive with her family after the world as she knows it has basically come to be non-existent.
I struggled to read the first 100-150 pages of this book, once I stopped paying attention to the timeline it became a little easier. It was just very hard to believe that the entire world fell apart do to this "HDI" virus in a matter of a few weeks. It was also a little difficult to keep up with who was who and came from where once they started running into people and bringing them home. I had trouble connecting with the characters and their stories, I believe due to the fact that their were so many of them.
As the story progressed it did seem to get a little more interesting and the emotions that the people were experiencing did seem to be legitimate, and the actual emotions that some should feel if they were in that situation. However as it progress it started getting more and more far fetched, and again the time frame for all of the events taking place was very short. Between the "HDI's" taking over the world and then being mysteriously drawn to a near-by rock quarry, to then mutating and becoming more intelligent, to WW3, and then a civil war.... all within a span of approximately 6 months, it really was hard to believe that it was actually happening.
Not a book that I would recommend for someone that doesn't normally read "zombie" books.
April 6, 2014
If you like Post Apocalyptic Fiction, you'll love this book. It's almost 700 pages packed full of twists and turns around ever corner.
Written in diary format of a middle aged woman, trying to keep her family and friends safe, healthy, and alive. This book is a page turner, and hard to put down.
Written in diary format of a middle aged woman, trying to keep her family and friends safe, healthy, and alive. This book is a page turner, and hard to put down.
September 22, 2018
This is one of my favorite PA books. Yes it has zombies, and it can get pretty graphic sometimes, but it isn't really about them. It is about family and coming together in a world gone mad, survival and finding love.This is written as a diary. I am not usually a fan of those, and I didn't realize how it was written until after I had bought it, but I didn't mind it at all. It is told from the POV of Robin Kapper. She and her husband own The Kapper Compound. They gain some individuals and families and lose some too. It isn't pretty. It is hard work and it is devastating sometimes, but sometimes it is fun and wonderful. If you don't like detailed lists of what they loot or what they eat, don't buy this book. Remember it is a diary. She is writing for future generations, but it is still her day to day life.!!!This is a trigger warning!
!!If any of the above bothers you, please don't read it. It is not graphic and detailed, but it does happen and it is horrifying.I definitely recommend this book.
!!If any of the above bothers you, please don't read it. It is not graphic and detailed, but it does happen and it is horrifying.I definitely recommend this book.
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews