Warm Bodies by Isaac Marion
Publisher: Atria
Ratings: 3/5
Genre: Science Fiction, Apocalyptic, Adult Fiction
Post Book Thoughts: …That was better than I expected it to be…
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.
So I managed to get myself the flu and I was stuck in bed and running out of things to mindlessly watch so I decided to mindlessly read. Now a big part of mindlessly reading is finding something easy to go through and I found this on my reading list.
Now I have been avoiding this book because I wasn’t a big fan of the movie trailer, it seemed like a Zombie love story which at the time I was in no mood to get behind. You know what, I decided to take the leap and I am actually surprisingly happy I did!
*Inserting my usual spoiler warning here*
The beginning was a bit droll but that could be my biases playing into it, you’re walking around with R who’s a zombie and basically going through his thoughts and life and then it starts to become not too bad actually. I do feel like there was this weird thing going on where the writer was trying to make it like the zombies really had no human emotions but still the thoughts come off as very laden with emotions? But maybe that’s just cause in general R was supposed to be a little different to the other Zombies. Then the girl comes in, wasn’t entirely taken up by her character but the dynamic between R and Julie was cool.
I was afraid here that it would be all mushy but you know what! Good on Isaac it actually wasn’t!
We have that friendship between R and M which is quite profound when you think about it, how they are able to let go of all their little Zombie fights and still M got R’s back in his quest to go get the girl!
The characters in this book aren’t bad, we have Julie’s dad the military manly man, and her friend Naomi who seemed cool. We have Perry, whose brain R eats and ends up getting consumed with Perry’s memories.
That was a good theory in the book too! That eating brains for a moment gave the Zombies the memories of person the brain belonged to.
It’s quite awesome how the author manages to use one character (R) to bring to life the story of Perry too and all the conflicts and problems he dealt with after losing his parents and having his dreams die in this apocalyptic world.
I have to say it’s quite a feat to be able to turn some Zombie novel into a semi romantic and philosophical. This story was quite short but it did have so many little lessons packed here and there.
‘The world is always just what it is now, and it’s up to you how you respond to it.’
It’s a very clever book to be able to pack in all that in such a small novel, and witty too!
‘I am Dead, but it’s not so bad. I’ve learned to live with it.’
And for a Zombie R is quite relatable sometimes;
‘This is my greatest obstacle, the biggest of all the boulders littering my path. In my mind I am eloquent; I can climb intricate scaffolds of words to reach the highest cathedral ceilings and paint my thoughts. But when I open my mouth, it all collapses.’
And at the end of the book we don’t see the Zombies turn into humans but I’m willing to bet my bottom dollar it happens in the movies, but it still leaves you very hopeful, and you kind of have this warm fuzzy feeling in your body with the message it gives out.
‘We smile, because this is how we save the world.’
Do I recommend you read the book? Definitely, even if you’re not much of a reader, it’s fun and easy to read and really cute. It’s one of those good books
