Warm Bodies by Isaac Marion (review)

 

Warm Bodies (1)

by Isaac Marion

Genre: Dystopian, Young Adult, Romance, Horror

Published: April 2011

Pages: 239

Published by Atria  

Summary:  "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. Just 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 burst of vibrant color in the otherwise dreary and gray landscape that R lives in. 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."

Review:  What an entertaining delight! I first heard of this book through the movie trailer. I was very skeptical about this, yet oddly curious at the same time. A zombie who falls in love.... I did not know what to expect getting into this. What I ended up experiencing was a story like no other.

'R' is a zombie with personality. Not very common, right? Even the other zombies think he is odd. He longs for memories...for life. When he eats the brain of a young man named Perry and saving a human girl, things begin to change for him. He gets flashbacks of Perry's life, giving him a familiarity to the girl, Julie, he saved. He learns of Perry's relationship to Julie and his own feelings toward her begin to manifest themselves.

The writing is very well done. There is a certain eloquence to the artistic imaging Isaac Marion has set up for us. The story is all told from R's perspective. While his spoken words may be few, his thoughts are many. He has am amusing, dry sense of humor that keeps the reader engaged in what is happening around him. We see his life at the airport, including a marriage, adopting kids, and even zombie "sex." Let me tell you, never have I heard of such things working the was they do in a zombie society. Then again, I never read of a zombie society. So this was a very unique experience.

The only downside for this was that while the first half to two-thirds of the books were well written and is almost poetic in nature, the rest seems more rushed. The world seems to lose its aspect, the writing style itself even seems to shift. Maybe it was because r didn't know what to think of his own thoughts by this point. Personally though, I wish the story was drawn out a bit more to give the same attention to the ending that the beginning received.

So, overall, I was quite happy with this one. If you have seen the movie, yet never read the book: Go read the book. Much better than the movie. The humor and personality portrayed is beautiful here. Very creative storytelling.