Warm Bodies

R is a young man with an existential crisis–he is a zombie. He shuffles through an America destroyed by war, social collapse, and the mindless hunger of his undead comrades, but he craves something more than blood and brains. He can speak just a few grunted syllables, but his inner life is deep, full of wonder and longing. He has no memories,no identity, and no pulse, but he has dreams.

After experiencing a teenage boy’s memories while consuming his brain, R makes an unexpected choice that begins a tense, awkward, and strangely sweet relationship with the victim’s human girlfriend. Julie is a blast of color in the otherwise dreary and gray landscape that surrounds R. His decision to protect her will transform not only R, but his fellow Dead, and perhaps their whole lifeless world.

Scary, funny, and surprisingly poignant, Warm Bodies is about being alive, being dead, and the blurry line in between.

 

1. Story  – Getting Into It (7) Considering this book takes place within the head of a zombie I was it did not take to long to get into this one.
2. Story – Staying Interested (7) This is an interesting twist on zombies that I enjoyed.  I was only put off by some of the things the author tried writing about.
3. Story – Finish (7) The book finished well and I would be interested in reading the planned sequel. Still not sure if I will though.
4. Characters (7) I really like the main character R and the minor characters. But the main female lead is a low self-esteem slut that makes it hard for you to not want R to eat her.
5. Writing (3) Isaac Marion is one of the worst authors I have ever read when it comes to how he  tries to get his message across. Either he is stupid or he thinks his readers are. I understand the zombies can’t speak well and have small vocabularies that leads them to swear a ton. But in order to get the idea that the lead female tries to act tough (by swearing enough to make a sailor blush) but is really softy inside with self-esteem issues (by having her be slutty enough I would not want to touch her with a pole). Add in the fact that the zombies which are supposed to have no strong desires except to occasionally eat brains seem to be sex addicts said to get naked and rub against each other and watch porn. Marion has the potential to be a good author but I don’t know why he went this way to get his message across.

Overall a 31/50 or 3.0 rating from me. I decided to get this review out today for Halloween and since a movie is coming out in a few months. This is a really interesting story that I really enjoyed at times. I only wish Marion did not feel the need to push things that did not need to be in there. I don’t know if he did it for shock value or what but this is a story I probably would have read in one sitting that turned into a grueling week where I wanted to read what happened next but would get annoyed enough to keep putting the book down.  I’m actually really interested in the movie because I think the script will turn out better than Marion’s own words.