To put it another way, the way that Jonathan Swift put it, “It is useless to attempt to reason a man out of a thing he was never reasoned into. Intelligent, compassionate and unsettling, And Then I Woke Up is both an invitation to and a caution against allegory. As a result, the story is action-packed and fast-paced, but Violet is a strange mix of pure competence and total passivity, always managing to come out on the winning side. Navarrians had always been told that these were monsters of legend and myth, not real creatures dangerously close to breaking through Navarre’s wards and attacking civilian populations. The slow reveal of Spence’s journey to being cured was handled well, framing it to be a group therapy session that’s been rehearsed, but with the cracks slowly starting to show.

Leila figures into one of the story’s most poignant moments at the end when she makes a shocking decision and asks Spence to help her carry it out.

The plot twists in Devlin's novel turn the archetypal zombie story on its head and make for a thoughtful, if quick, read; readers who balk at metafiction can enjoy it as a horror story, while others can have fun with the novel's genre savvy. Spence’s recitation of his story is both fascinating and stomach churning as he lists explicit details and questions his own motives and perspective. Hearst UK is the trading name of the National Magazine Company Ltd, 30 Panton Street, Leicester Square, London, SW1Y 4AJ. I did not know what to expect when I picked this book up, but as soon as I entered Devlin’s domain, I was hooked.

While the novel appears to be set in Australia, it isn’t in your face about it and the social commentary can easily reflect any number of nations. But then again, had it been longer it might have moved more into the typical action/adventure plot line and lost the creepiness of just getting a snapshot into this world and scenario.You have the Others, the infected, the uninfected, and the survivors, to name a few, each of which means something different to different people, and the meanings aren’t always easy to distinguish because you have to remember who’s using these terms and what experiences they’ve had. Devlin has Spence walk the reader through his conception of it, parroting the sterilized medical and psychological explanations to induce goosebumps. The book is full of action and just as full of plot holes, including scenes that are illogical or disconnected from the main narrative. I'm all for books that leave me questioning, but I didn't feel led anywhere by this one - it echoed my questions, but never took me further.

Grimdark fans will appreciate And Then I Woke Up for the internal struggles the characters experience, the unreliability of the narrative, and the way Devlin constructs a hazy maze where the truth lays hidden. And though there is compassion for one another and shared trauma throughout society, the story really lives in the attempt to forgive oneself, and if said forgiveness is even deserved. Malcolm Devlin's stories have appeared in Black Static, Interzone, The Shadow Booth and Shadows and Tall Trees. It is a story--like all stories--with the ability to make us see the world just a little bit differently.

And now we get to the point of the book, the burden of this And Then I Woke Up book review—what is the truth? Devlin’s counter to the narrative is subtle and and in some ways radical, involving community efforts on a level I rarely see in such stories. Although Violet and her dragons continue to model extreme bravery, the novel feels repetitive and more than a little sloppy, leaving obvious questions about the world unanswered. Self-assurance proves to be a hard destination to walk back to, and the misinformation and mob mentality he tries to navigate feel incredibly relevant to the world we are living in now.