Warm Bodies by Isaac Marion

Title: Warm Bodies
Author: Isaac Marion
Type: Young Adult Novel
Genre: Fiction
Series: Sort of. It has a mini Prequel
Pages: 241
Copyright: 2011
Publisher: Emily Bestler Books/ATRIA
Rating: 4 out of 5


Summary: from Goodread
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, noidentity, and no pulse, but he has dreams.After experiencing a teenage boy's memories while consuming his brain, R makes an unexpected choice that begins a tense, awkward, and stragely sweet relationship with the victim's human girlfriend. Julie is a blast of color in the otherwise dreary and gray landscape that surrounds R. 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. 

Feelings:
I did see the movie before I read the book but the movie didn't take anything away from reading the book. So if you enjoyed the movie you will enjoy the book as well. There were some big difference between the book and the movie. Some of the issues I had with the movie distance and time, long time to get there verse short time the last time, were not issues in the book and were explained. The movie had some wonderful parallels that were not as defined in the book. The movie also seemed to play on Romeo and Juliet a little more than a felt like the book did. I thought that it worked well in the movie and what was in the book was fun as well. I liked both the book and the movie but because they were different I didn't really have a problem knowing and anticipating what was coming in the same way I might have if the movie followed the book closer.

Warm Bodies is many different things at once. It is a story about love and acceptance. It is a story about the consequences of our current lifestyle and our inability to connect with others. This is a very simple book in many ways but there are things hidden in here that can be viewed as warnings. This book has a message and that message is if humans disconnect from each other we will become zombies.

No one I know has any specific memories. Just a vague, vestigial knowledge of a world long gone. Faint impressions of past lives that linger like phantom limbs. We recognize civilization--buildings, cars, a general overview--but we have no personal role in it. No history. We are just here. We do what we do, time passes, and no one asks questions. But like I've said, it's not so bad. We may appear mindless, but we aren't. The rusty cogs of cogency still spin, just geared down and down till the outer motion is barely visible. We grunt and groan, we shrug and nod, and sometimes a few words slip out. It's not that different from before. (p.4)

R is a zombie and for a zombie he is pretty intelligent however, he cannot express these feelings. There is lots of internal dialogue in the book from R's point of view it is funny and entertaining the thoughts he has. I enjoyed this internal monologue but I can also see how it might be annoying are boring to some people.

I don't know why we have to kill people. I don't know what chewing through a man's neck accomplishes. I steal what he has to replace what I lack. He disappears, and I stay. It's simple but senseless, arbitrary laws from some lunatic legislator in the sky. But following those laws keeps me walking, so I follow them to the letter. (p.8)

R does a lot of questioning but it is really when he meets Julie that he begins to think about being human in a different way. Maybe it is because he eats a brain that just isn't willing to leave him alone or maybe it really is a change in him created by the connection he feels with Julie. Whatever the case, this is a fun, funny, at times sad  book about humanity.

I would recommend this book to most people. It is not your typical gory zombie story and I really liked that. Read it or watch the movie they are both great.