Title: Warm Bodies
Author: Isaac Marion
Genres: Urban Fantasy, Young Adult
Publisher: Atria (Imprint of Simon & Schuster)
Date Published: October 28th, 2010
Edition: Hardcover
Rating:
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.
My Review:
I’ve had Warm Bodies on my radar for quite awhile but finally decided to pick it up because I want to watch it’s movie counterpart! The movie previews have been so charming and cute that it really gave me the final push to read it — and boy am I glad I did!
It’s no secret that just because a book makes it to the big (or small) screen doesn’t mean it’s a very good book. Plenty of pretty crappy books have graced the boob tube. But Warm Bodies is a different story. Isaac Marion has a refreshingly vivid and charismatic writing style that brings R and the world he lives in to life right off the page.
R is a zombie living in a world overrun by those of his kind. But he’s not the same as the others who moan and groan and don’t seem to wonder why they can’t remember anything from their previous lives as humans — not even their names. But while R can only remember the first letter of his former name, he ponders the life around him and the things he and his kind are forced to do by what feels like the very nature inside of them.
When he meets Julie he immediately feels a connection to her because…well because he just ate her boyfriend Perry’s brain and gained glimpses of his memories while chowing down. But he doesn’t kill Julie because Perry’s memories of her strike a chord within R, one that he wants to explore a little further, and one that might challenge the very existence of him and his kind.
While Warm Bodies is, on the surface, you’re typical zombie eats girls’ boyfriend, girl is grateful for not becoming a snack as well, zombie likes girl, girl might just like zombie too kind of story, it is also so much more than that. It’s funny and entertaining but at the same time the ironic sort of conclusion that comes from it can be a great lesson about life and having the courage to hope for more than you can ever dream possible.
Overall I definitely loved this and recommend it to anyone who likes a good story with a few laughs here and there. Even if you’re not a fan of zombie stories, you’ll probably enjoy this one. There was only one thing that was disappointing to me:
That R never remembers his name! I was kind of jealous that others like M/Marcus remembered their names but what about R? Why couldn’t he remember anything about himself when he’s the one who started the whole uprising — with the help of Perry’s particularly genius brain of course.
Other than that I loved the book, the characters, and the story it had to tell.
Read more reviews & Buy it up! 
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