Books4Tomorrow: REVIEW: WARM BODIES (Warm Bodies, #1)

Title: Warm Bodies

Series: Warm Bodies, #1

Author: Isaac Marion

Publisher: Vintage Digital

Publication Date: October 14, 2010

Genres: Horror, Romance

Reviewed by: Books4Tomorrow

Source: Purchased

My star rating: 4/5

SUMMARY

R is having a no-life crisis—he is a zombie. He has no memories, no identity, and no pulse, but he is a little different from his fellow Dead. He may occasionally eat people, but he’d rather be riding abandoned airport escalators, listening to Sinatra in the cozy 747 he calls home, or collecting souvenirs from the ruins of civilization.

And then he meets a girl.

First as his captive, then his reluctant guest, Julie is a blast of living color in R’s gray landscape, and something inside him begins to bloom. He doesn’t want to eat this girl—although she looks delicious—he wants to protect her. But their unlikely bond will cause ripples they can’t imagine, and their hopeless world won’t change without a fight.

REVIEW

I’m a huge fan of zombie novels, but lately I’ve started reading less and less zombie books because it’s becoming too formulaic. There’s only so much you can do with zombies, right? They groan, they shuffle, and they eat brains, while the very live protagonist tries to stay alive in a post-apocalyptic setting. Soooo, I expected pretty much the same when I picked up my copy of Warm Bodies. You can imagine my relief (as I hardly ever read blurbs) to discover a zombie novel unlike any other I’ve ever read. This one has a Sinatra-loving, conscientious zombie protagonist who is taught how to drive and who likes to hoard stuff. How bizarrely cool is that?

Admittedly, it did take me some time to get used to this author’s writing voice. It’s not every day you read a story from the living dead’s point of view. Much less one who falls in love with its food. But overall it was an amazing read. I loved the morbid humor that caught me off-guard sometimes, but which had me in stitches. And what made this book really unique is that the gore is kept to a minimum and the focus is placed more on the main character’s philosophical thoughts and new emotions, rather than reverting to shock techniques to engage the reader.

As far as romance novels go, this one is definitely in a class of its own, and it stands out in originality. “R” is a uniquely complex character and seeing things from his perspective made the feelings he had for Julie so much more touching. Julie’s character was quite annoying at first and only near the end of the book did I start liking her a little. I didn’t care much for any of the secondary characters, except maybe for “M” because he made me laugh out loud at times and he was the best of friends with “R”, or at least as best a friend the living dead can possibly be.

I liked the idea of the undead having a church and a school where kid zombies are taught how to attack the living, paralleled with the living having a school where kids are taught how to kill zombies. Also, these zombies eating brains because it’s like a drug to them, and not because they need food, gave the usual zombie formula a brand new spin. The zombies being regulated by the Boneys was also a nice addition to the story and an imaginative twist to the tale.

The ending was a little too happily-ever-after for my taste, and even though I enjoyed Warm Bodies immensely I can’t really see what exactly inspired it to be made into a movie. I haven’t watched the movie yet but I’d sure like to see how the book was translated to the film version. All in all, this was a really terrific read. The writing is lyrical and the romance endearing. Definitely worth the splurge.