[Review: Warm Bodies by Isaac Marion]

"Warm Bodies"
Author: Isaac Marion
Pages: 240
Genre: YA, NA, Zombie Books
Date Published: October 28th, 2010
Publisher: Vintage
Format Read: Purchased paperback

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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.

-Goodreads 

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My Thoughts:

My brain has been blown.  The pun is intended and I'm not going to take it back.  I have so much love for this book.  It manages to give you wonderful characters, grizzly death, horror movie amounts of blood and almost too much heart for a book so small.  It's one of those books that makes you think about things as well a grabbing you by the foot and pulling you on a ride that you'll never forget.  

Warm Bodies is a book that is very complex and yet extremely simple.  If you take away the writing, you're left with story that is very simple to begin with.  But it's Marion's writing that fleshes this story out into something that you will remember.  (Yes, I realize that I am using lots of zombie words in this review.  I can't help it.  So I just gave in.) 

The book is as sweet as it is gory.  It's got that healthy dose of the "ewww that was nasty" factor, and the "awww that was so cute" heart flutters.  Sometimes in scenes that were right next to each other and magically even sometimes in the same scenes.  Marion, you get a high five from me.   

The brilliance that is R will have you laughing and thinking deep thoughts all at the same time.  Making a zombie self aware about what is going on around him is an awesome idea and it's so much fun to read!  The fact that his thoughts are so huge and that he can only speak a few syllables at a time makes you love him all the more.  Because honestly, if he said all of his thoughts out loud all the time, you would want to tell him to shut the hell up, but somehow as internal dialogue it worked.

And Julie was one tough little cookie.  I mean she gets dragged into a zombie pit and tries to get herself out.  There is something about her that makes you wish that she was your friend.  At least during a zombie invasion.  And with all of the gnarly things that have compiled to make her life, you would think that she wouldn't have a shred of hope left.  But that's not the case here.  Julie is our ray of glorious hope through the whole novel.

The surprise character that I loved happened to be Perry.  Marion's use of his voice after his death was an interesting twist.  And he was a great plot tool as well.  It was through his eyes and voice that we saw what had been happening while R was at the airport, listening to Sinatra.  Though I didn't fully get why he did what he did, in the end I loved how he got to live on in the book!

And the secondary characters added so much to the story.  M, Nora, Rossy and Julie's dad all had their parts to play and they all had strong enough personalities that they didn't get washed out by the vibrant leads of this story.  

All in all I loved everything about Warm Bodies.  From the world building and the characters and the interactions that they had with each other.  I mean after all this is a zombie love story.  Yeah, read that sentence again... zombie love story.  All I'm asking is how can you not love that?  In my opinion you should run, stumble and grumble your way to a book store to pick this one up!  

Rating:

 

5 Unicorns = Get Your Hands On This One Now!

(Here is my review of Warm Bodies The Film)