Warm Bodies

Warm Bodies - Isaac Marion
Atria Books - 2011
239 pages

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       In some ways, R is not to different from many of us.  He has a new wife.  He has two children, a boy and a girl.  He has a best friend, M.  He even has a car and a home.  He falls in love.  However, there is a way in which he's pretty different from you and me: he doesn't remember his name or most of his life, is dead, and is a zombie.

       However, R is a very different from seemingly most of his other fellow zombies hanging out at the airport hive: he's self-aware and is able to talk in short words and phrases with his friend, M.  They do eat brains (among other body parts), but brains give off small fragments of the person's memories.   On one raid on for food, R eats Perry, which gives him the memories of Perry's life with Julie.  After that, R makes a split decision to spare and save the still living human, Julie, a decision which could have far reaching consequences for him.

       I'm not a big fan of zombies to begin with and really try to stay away from the horror genrein general, but I had heard some good things about it and it is also the first book selected in a book club I just joined.  I wasn't sure what to expect from this.  As I said, horror is a genre that I usually don't tread too close to.

       But, then I got the book in my hands and looked at the covers.  The first quote in "advanced praise" of the book comes from Stephenie Meyer.  You know, the one who wrote the Twilight books.  That caused me a bit pause.  I'm not a Twilight fan.  Oh my....what am I getting myself literately into!?  Then I saw the second one is by Audrey Niffenegger, the author of The Time Traveler's Wife, which I liked a lot, so that put myself a bit at ease.

       To an extent, this may seem cosmetically like William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliette and Zombies, but that's far from it.  There are some parallel, such a star-cross romance and there is a certain naming pattern that makes allusions to Shakespeare's work: R(omeo), Julie(tte), M(ercutio), Perry (Paris?), and even a best friend of Julie's whose name starts with an "N".  However, from what little I remember of the play I had to read in middle school, that's where the majority of the similarity.

       The strength of this first novel by Isaac Marion, is in the first-person storytelling of his protagonist R.  He's a compelling character and unlike any I've sen before.  Where as the little zombie media I've heard about mostly focuses on the living and there relationship with the Dead, seeing the world through the eyes of an fairly articulate zombie works.  Seeing how the zombie society and daily life works is an interesting concept that I, at least, hadn't seen before.

       The weakness in this book, though, is the climax, which felt a bit forced.  Had Marion lengthened the novel a bit ahving more time to fully explain things, I may not have had such a reaction to the conclusion, though there is a possible opening for a sequel. 

       All in all, I really liked the book, and had the climax been a bit stronger and not felt so rushed, this could have easily been a 5-star review.  The premise, seemed relatively fresh and I had problems putting the book down.  It would make a good beach book or, considering the season, a good book to read on a day you're snowed in.  A film version is scheduled for release in February 2013, so that leaves plenty of time to read the book beforehand.

Rating: 3.5 - 4