Synopsis: 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, noidentity, 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 stragely 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.
Publisher: Atria/Emily Bestler Books
Edition: Paper back
Page Count: 239 pages
Rating; 4 or 3.5/5 stars
Review:
Let me just start off by saying, I might have went into this with higher expectations than it deserved. The movie trailer was completely different than the tone of the book. I have yet to see the movie, so I don't know if the trailer stays true to the actual movie. The trailer makes this seem like it's a light, fun comedy on zombies. But, Warm Bodies, was not.
This book is about a zombie named R. R remembers nothing of his previous life and wanders around an abandoned airport all day. There are others like him and he lives in the airport with them. His "best friend" was M. One day R and M, plus a lot more zombies, go out to get food, AKA humans. R eats the brain of a boy and instantly gets his memories. He becomes enamored with a girl named Julie and saves her from the zombies.
Now if that doesn't sound good to you, I don't know what will. I know some people were put off by the fact that zombies in this book actually get feelings. But I thought it was a nice, fresh take on zombies. Zombies are dead creatures, so it's cool to see that they hunt humans for their emotions. I really this new take on zombies.
The writing style was very poetic and I loved it. I'd try to find some quotes for you, but none of them really stuck with me enough to write it down. But if you do pick this book up, be warned that the writing is magnificent.
Now for the things I didn't like. Like I said, I was expecting way too much from this book. I was expecting an action/adventure/romance. What I got was a book talking about philisophical topics. The question of whether life was worth living took up pages at a time and it was very slow. The author was trying to tell the readers something and I don't think I caught it. Maybe if I re-read this in the future, I might like it more. But I just did not like how philisophical this book was. The movie was very misleading.
Aside from the philisophical side of the book, I also didn't like how the zombies and humans acted. In this one scene near the end, there was this "fight scene". Notice the quotes around fight scene. This alleged fight scene lasted for two to three paragraphs and then was never mentioned again. It felt to rushed. When the Boney's left, it wasn't explained at all. It was like the author was just like "well, I have to make it end some how. I don't know how so let's just make it 'unexplained energy'." I would have appreciated it if he went into more detail. We were just told what happened and it wasn't very actiony. I was disappointed by that.
Also, did anyone else not like how we weren't told what year it was? It could have been the future, present or past for all I knew.
I may sound like I hate this book. I may sound like this book is nothing but disappointment. It's not, I assure you. My expectations were too high. I suggest you go into this with no expectations at all. You will like it better that way, I promise.
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