The protagonist of Warm Bodies is R, a zombie who cannot remember his name beyond that single letter. You’ve been looking for a book where you finish it with a smile on your face, haven’t you? I know it. No, really, really, it does not read like a zombie book. As if we even NEED reasons 1-7 or 9-10 anymore.ĩ. Am I inventing all this like the beer buzz? A placebo? An optimistic illusion? Either way, I feel the flatline of my existence disrupting, forming heartbeat hills and valleys.”Ĩ. Pretty prose bonus round! “I dream my necrotic cells shrugging off their lethargy, inflating and lighting up like Christmas deep in my dark core. If he wasn’t dead, I’d be all, what a nice boy you are, playing Sinatra for your girlfriend.ħ. It’s all rather delightful at some points. If at some points R becomes dangerously sentimental, it’s noted with a wry smile. But Isaac Marion veers away from all that.
How easy it would be for Julie to be a construct instead of a real girl worth saving. How easy it would be for them to stop being real people. Oh how easy it would be for this to descend into pure cheesiness. The book begins with R saving a girl - Julie - from certain death from both himself and other zombies. It makes me think I’m going to do it again.ĥ. But there was something very satisfying about reading this perfectly paced slender novel in three or four hours. It’s not that I don’t like long books - I love ‘em. Maybe that does sound a little like a Meg Ryan movie.Ĥ. It’s about living life to the fullest and feeling everything you can and not being afraid. I don’t want to say it’s about self actualization, because who even knows what that means outside of a Meg Ryan movie. It also happens to be something I deeply, deeply believe in. The metaphor that the zombies stand for is not deeply hidden in WARM BODIES, and it’s equal parts lesson and warning. Did I mention metaphor? Well, let me do it again. Somewhere in the core of his zombie brain, there’s a bit of R left, and watching that struggle against the delightfully metaphorical zombiesm is just. It’s not glorified or toned down, but R makes the book different because he’s different. What really makes this book not feel like a zombie book is that it’s told from R’s point of view - and he’s a zombie.
But I will tell you this: it doesn’t feel like a zombie book.Ģ. I’m not going to tell you this isn’t a zombie book, because it is - there is brain eating and arms falling off and shotguns and gray matter and OMG WHAT ARE WE GOING TO EAT FOR DINNER - YOU!? and all the traditional zombie nihilism. I have a pretty strict disinterest in zombies that I break only for Carrie Ryan’s books. It had glowing reviews from Stephanie Meyer, so I figured it couldn’t be that gross, and a glowing quote from Audrey Niffeneggar, so I figured it had to be well-written. In the spirit of honesty, I had this book as an advanced review copy for literally months before I picked it up.
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