It's mainly because the behaviour of the "new" group is total bullshit. If they were humans before, they should know it was useless to do all this and much better to go at him and point out "HEY LOOK WE CAN LIVE NORMALLY A LITTLE". Hunting the guy who is killing them during the day has nothing in common with hunting Dracula who is biting humans during the night, because they actually know they can live together. Comparing fear of him to fear of Dracula, my ass.
It may be some time, since I've read it, so correct me, if I'm mistaken, but weren't there different stages of infection? It might be that I'm mistaking it with other post-apocalyptic, post-global-infection books. That means that the changed, after first coming to their new senses might have been quite disoriented before they, after the infection progressed some time, gained some if not all of their former knowledge as human beings. Weren't the infected just on the verge of redeveloping some kind of society by the end of the book? The organized even killed off some of their own kind (those in front of main characters house) because they didn't return to a more civilized self, even after so many of them did that the necessity for a new society emerged.
Again, I might be mistaken and remember it wrong.
Now then, should I try to mention some books I've read and enjoyed?
Dan Simmons: The Hyperion as well as the Endymion books. A great read all in all that makes the (in my eyes) few bad scenes all the more stupid.
Spoiler, click to toggle visibilty
Also, hello sad end that comes in a nice package. Just because Aenea lives at the end of the book, doesn't mean she won't die a gruesome death and will be, to stay with the mythology of the books, gone forever, only her memories remaining, as long as they aren't destroyed by some idiot using the...dimension whose name I have forgotten in the wrong way.
Also no continuous POWER LEVEL for the Shrike
Mervyn Peake: The books that go as the Gormenghast trilogy. Memorable characters, strange setting, descent into madness for some characters, with others already seeming to be mad...Gormenghast is a madhouse. Unique, very readable, never boring. For me.
Mark Z. Danielewski: House of Leaves. One might say it wants to be or look like something it is not, but I found it quite entertaining. Mainly got interested because of the technique, the story was not really my biggest interest, was well executed in the end. But it really is something different, if there's just some writing in the top corner of the page. In the end I enjoyed it.
Harlan Ellison: What I've read by him was always good.
Gene Wolfe: Not much read by him, yet. Only some short stories, but he is, despite that quite prominent on my to read list. And yes, I know I promised to only mention books I've already read. I lied.
Scott Westerfeld: The Risen Empire. Space opera. Nice characters, nice setting, the story develops at a good pace, there are several hotspots with likeable protagonists. I got it, because I was interested and I was not let down.
Susanna Clarke: Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell. Despite the length and wordiness I never found the book to be tedious or boring.
Alfred Doeblin: Berlin Alexanderplatz. Yes. I enjoyed it. At first only being interested in the technique, the story turned out interesting.
Arno Schmidt: Leviathan. Schwarze Spiegel. Great. One day I have to get my hands on Zettels Traum.
Tom Piccirilli: I liked what I've read, especially November Mourns and Headstone City. Of all the books I've read by him, which accounts to four, they all dealt with some kind of homecoming. And ghosts. And in the last two the main characters returned home from jail, if I'm remembering it correctly.
Gary A. Braunbeck: In Silent Graves. Good book. Not only in the horror genre. Disturbing with good characters. Maybe some problems with one of the last chapters, but the rest was so great, nothing was lost.
Joseph Heller: Catch 22. What to say? First 100 pages were better in my opinion. You had to think more to puzzle everything together. The longer into the book, the longer and more coherent the chapters become.
William Gibson: The Neuromancer books. Nothing much to say. Very interesting.
John Milton: Paradise Lost. Beautiful. Read it while being bored with Robert McCammon's Swan Song.
Dante: The divine comedy. Only translated. Still beautiful.
Clive Barker: What I've read was great, including the Books of Blood, Imajica, Sacrament and others. Fantastic imagery. This mixture of horror and slight fantasy.
Stephen King: The Stand. Even though it could have been longer. There. I said it. Flagg seemed not developed enough.
Spoiler, click to toggle visibilty
Also, how could he miss the chance to write, after all this buildup, which could have been longer, concerning Las Vegas, how the city gets cleaned trough the nuclear finger of god?
Nevil Shute: On the Beach. Everybody dies and it's clear from one of the first chapters, if not the very first. Nuclear aftermath done right. Not like Swan Song...
Thomas Mann: Doktor Faustus. Fantastic prose. Interesting theories and thoughts. Story is more or less a varied form of the Faust myth.
I think, I've mentioned more than enough now. But when I post, I'll make it count. Or not.
tl;dr lots of books without a continuous air about them.
EDIT: added information on the books. At least some.