Review: Warm Bodies by Isaac Marion

Warm Bodies by Isaac Marion

Pages: 239
Publisher: Vintage Books
Published: October 28th, 2010
IBSN: 9780099549345

A zombie who yearns for a better life ends up falling in love—with a human—in this astonishingly original debut novel.

R is a zombie. He has no memories, no identity, and no pulse, but he has dreams. He doesn’t enjoy killing people; he enjoys riding escalators and listening to Frank Sinatra. He is a little different from his fellow Dead.

Not just another zombie novel, Warm Bodies is funny, scary, and deeply moving.

[Synopsis by Goodreads]

Warm Bodies was definitely not your average book about zombies. Rather than a undead protagonist whose internal monologue was the word "brainss" on repeat, R is an existentially tormented romantic.

Warm Bodies made a habit of taking every expectation I had in a novel of its genre and turning it on it's head.

The prose was beautiful and poetic, and had a literary quality that I was surprised to find in a zombie apocalypse novel. The tone was wry in a way that reminded me of John Green's novels.

The characters were fleshed out and realistic, developing over the course of the novel. Perry might have been my favourite character - his story is second hand but there was so much depth to him and I always found myself skipping forward to the parts where he featured.

The plot wasn't action-packed or uber fast, but it was unpredictable and interesting. So much of what happens in their futuristic world made me stop and think about our own.

Overall, the story was funny, sad, and touching. I give Warm Bodies a 6 out of 5!