Food for bookworms

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In the run up to the film’s release I’ve jumped on the Warm Bodies bandwagon. Normally I wouldn’t go anywhere near a zombie book but thankfully I saw the trailer for this before I heard about the novel and it looked so intriguing that I just had to read it! You can just ignore the Stephen Meyer quote on the front - the book is nothing like Twilight.

First, I want to reiterate that I am not normally a zombie novel fan. I’ve read a couple and they just don’t do anything for me. With this in mind, I think the reason I liked Warm Bodies so much is because it’s not a zombie novel. It contains zombies definitely, but I wouldn’t say it’s about zombies. At the end of the day it’s the bigger concern of a disregard for the world we have now and our ability to look past appearances that Marion focuses on. 

Anyway, deep questions of life aside, this is a hilariously witty book. A lot of the comedy arises from the protagonist R’s frustration with the difference between the coherence of his interior monologues and the blunt pointlessness of his actions as a zombie. To me, this was a really intriguing take on the whole zombie genre - the idea that these creatures are trapped  and frustrated within their dead bodies, rather than simply being the mindless creatures they appear to be on the outside. 

I guess I just like that Marion doesn’t completely strip them of their humanity. He gives the zombie their own kind of societal rules and even endows them with a fear of humans attacking them. 

One scene that particularly stands out for me is where R’s crush, Julie, and her best pal cover him in makeup in order to disguise his true identity…and it works.I think the fact that all it takes is makeup for R to be able to walk among the humans without being hunted down pretty much sums up the book. 

So basically I’m impressed! Marion has definitely got me wondering if perhaps I’ve just been reading the wrong zombie books. I’d be really interested to hear if you guys can recommend other novels similar to this one that I’ve been missing out on?

I hope that you enjoy it as much as I did! And definitely check out the trailer if you haven’t already seen it!

4/5