Assured Destruction With Zombies is a fairly satisfactory conclusion to the Assured Destruction trilogy. All the lingering questions from the first two books in the series are finally answered, and Janus demonstrates more growth and a greater understanding of her impact on the world around her than she has in the previous books.

Despite her growth, though, Janus remained a frustrating character for me -- realistic, but frustrating. She continued to make poor, often illegal, decisions, and her trust in others wasn't always well-placed, sometimes trusting those who hadn't demonstrated they could be trusted, while not trusting those who were more worthy of her trust. The people around Janus remained frustrating as well, in some ways helping her above and beyond what would be expected, but at the same time failing her in other ways.

Overall, though, Stewart does a good job in the Assured Destruction series of illustrating for teens the digital world's connections to the real world, the ramifications of poor decisions, and the difficulties of growing up in such a digitalized time. I definitely recommend reading the trilogy straight-through (or, better yet, in the soon-to-be-published omnibus edition) because it is only with the conclusion that the full picture is presented. It's too easy with books #1 and #2 to ignore some of the possible consequences, as Janus herself does, but with book #3 Janus and the reader gain greater perspective. (Although I still think Janus--and co., actually--gets off a bit too easily considering the many offenses she commits.)

Note: I received a digital galley of this book through NetGalley. ( )

***This review can also be found on my blog Love at First Write***

Being a read-to-review blogger for Stewart in the past, I naturally helped fund his Kickstarter campaign for book three back in March. This landed me with a nice paperback collection of the trilogy in April that I was dying to start! The wait until now fed my excitement and I was not disappointed.

Michael F. Stewart has a knack for entrapping readers in his high tech-storytelling. I picked it up this morning around 10 and did not set it down until I finished at 2 (which says a lot considering it took me an hour to concentrate and read 20 pages of my psych book yesterday). I love getting immersed in Janus’s world of hacking and Shadownet. All of the funny pop culture references don’t hurt either (Star Wars is my favorite). It just really feels like he’s writing about and for the young adults of this new generation. The problems that Janus faces are a little extreme, but really they’re not so far off. They are problems that anyone could be going through and that’s part of what makes Stewart’s novels so interesting and relatable.

In this book everything really pieces together, plot-wise. Questions that were raised in Assured Destruction and Script Kiddie are finally answered, but in an exciting and dramatic way. Everything finally comes together! Some writers can drag out their books and get caught up in telling emotions that make their stories boring. This was NOT the case. The stakes were raised, the plots were twisted, and I was super excited! Sure, Janus has been through a lot, she needed to sort herself out and show her more emotional human side, but made her even more relatable. I was rooting for her the entire 225 pages no matter what she was up to, Michael wrote so much heart and spirit into this young woman that it would be hard not to love her.

One thing I especially liked about this book is that she relied on the people around her. With her family business still on the line, her mom being hospitalized, community service, not being able to miss school, and having to deal with a virus that has infected Ottawa, Janus has quite a lot on her plate. The first two books she tried to do things her own way, risking her life and getting severely injured each time. For this adventure Jonny is Janus’ rock, always being there for her and helping her to the best of his abilities. Honestly he’s a keeper and I really hope after everything they’ve been through that they stay together forever. On top of that, Jan calls in all of her friends to help her and their friendship was just the greatest thing to read. She never would have made it through without them! She can finally trust people and isn’t alone anymore.

This book, as well as it’s counterparts are perfect YA contemporary fiction novels. The technological geek side of me was eager to eat up the words as quickly as possible. This is a also a book I would recommend to people who seek diversity when they read. Jan’s mom as MS (Multiple Sclerosis) and I think this was represented well. The author deals with each character’s disabilities flawlessly with out making them seem like they’re not a whole person.
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Janus and friends are back delving into her past, fighting crime, and finding mayhem. This time there's no telling how far it will go.

As with other adventures, a heartfelt narrative provides a baseline for the story and helps drive our characters as they search for answers in multiple mysteries. Some of the mysteries are overarching throughout all three of the tales.

Characters are authentic, caring, and dynamic.

Overall, an exciting read. ( )

This, Michael F Stewart's 3rd book in his Assured Destruction series, was excellent. I think Stewart did his best work here. Janus' character is allowed to begin a maturing process which moves her out of her comfort zone. We see her embrace the need for help from others, recognize that no person is self sufficient, begin thinking before acting, facing the fears in life and not letting them define her. Writing this kind of material in a thriller targeted for YA audience can be tricky but Stewart clearly mastered this art.
This book actually had a level of mystery/thriller so advanced for this genre I anticipated there being problems as Stewart developed the story line. Not so. He took us on a fun ride with surprises along the way. It was nice to have the last book in a series bring closure to some things without being so darn predictable.
We saw great character development here and were given missing puzzle pieces to Peter and to Janus' dad. I thought the romance portrayed between Janus and Jonny was so typical for this age. i appreciated it not being loaded with her constant need for his affirmation or overloaded with sexual innuendos and activity.
It has been a delight to become familiar with Stewart's work. Excellent fiction for older teens.
Note: I was given this e-book in exchange for an honest review. ( )