Author: Isaac Marion
Published: April 26th 2012
Publisher: Atria
My rating: 4 stars!
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.
Now that I've read this I kinda wanna slap myself for reading this just recently even though I have seen this a lot of times in goodreads for as long time with all its number of glowing reviews. And it was all because I thought it was corny and it just felt a little 'meh' on me - I mean a zombie and a teenage girl? Eww, right? Only until I realized that the movie adaptation will be out this month (and saw a zombie Nicholas Hoult in action) did I decide to finally give this book a try.
And boy, oh boy, did I want to drop on my knees and beg some forgiveness for being too judgmental. Because this book has just flat-out and completely proven me wrong! I mean, yes there were still those gory/weird moments and some parts where I don't know if I should take it seriously or just laugh it out but what I loved was that Marion was also able to make it into a very sweet, adorable and surprisingly very poignant and moving story. I have to admit, I did shed some tears while I was reading this.
Marion's writing was what I enjoyed so much about this book. He wrote R's perspective in such a way that you would instantly connect and understand him. Which is saying a lot since he wrote a guy's pov and not just some guy but a guy zombie's pov. He wrote it so effectively and his prose so beautifully and lovely that compelled me to really adore and appreciate R's character despite the weirdness and absurdity of the situation.
More than anything else, I loved the underlying yet very powerful and thought-provoking poignant messages about hope, love, change and humanity in this book. It was something I wasn't expecting when I started this but it was what I had greatly appreciated about this book in the end. I loved how Marion made us delve deeper into the story and see the more important and bigger values and issues in it.
