Genre: young adult / horror / romance / fantasy
Pages: 240
Rating: 2,5/5 stars
Goodreads
Summary
'R' is a zombie. He has no name, no memories and no pulse, but he has dreams. He is a little different from his fellow Dead.
Amongst the ruins of an abandoned city, R meets a girl. Her name is Julie and she is the opposite of everything he knows - warm and bright and very much alive, she is a blast of colour in a dreary grey landscape. For reasons he can't understand, R chooses to save Julie instead of eating her, and a tense yet strangely tender relationship begins.
This has never happened before. It breaks the rules and defies logic, but R is no longer content with life in the grave. He wants to breathe again, he wants to live, and Julie wants to help him. But their grim, rotting world won't be changed without a fight...
My thoughts
I saw the movie of this book once, and eventhough it wasn't an amazing movie I enjoyed it. When I realised it was based on a book I decided to give that one a go. Unfortunately the book was very different from the movie. Not so much in what actually happens, but more the way it is all described. The movie did a good job in taking itself not to seriously and is often funny, while the book tries to be a dramatic romance without actually being very dramatic or very romantic. It also didn't scare me in the least, what I kind of hoped for from a zombie book.
R was apparently in love with Julie. I only know this because he mentions it once. Besides that he says that she is pretty and has a nice laugh there didn't really seem to be anything between them. Julie's interest in R surprised me even more, considering he had no personality at all. After reading the whole book the only thing we really know about R is that he collects souvenirs and listens to music. Julie's best friend Nora was also a mystery to me. Eventhough I didn't think it was believable that Julie had a crush on R, Nora should have hit her friend on the head for taking a zombie home and believing he can be saved. What kind of friend is she that does not once point out all the dangers to this? Not once does she say 'And what if he can't control himself any longer and just eats you?'. So as you can see I was a little frustrated with this book. I constantly fell like I wanted to slap the characters. The only character in this book who really seemed to realise what a threat the zombies really were was Julie's father who was portrayed as though he was immoral and going crazy.
This book wasn't entirely bad though. The writing style was rough and pure, which I could appreciate, and the book was an easy and quick read.
I totally agree with you that the movie was better than the book in this case (how often do you say that?). I think the movie did a better job of actually building a connection between R and Julie - and gave a better explanation of things). Plus, like you mentioned, it took itself less seriously.
ReplyDeleteNicole @ Feed Your Fiction Addiction
I can't name any other book to movie adaptation were I thought the movie was better, haha. Usually in the book things are better explained and you get to know the characters better which makes you love them more, but not in this case. In the book the characters just annoyed me to no end.
DeleteHa! It seems like this is the rare exception where the movie was actually better than the book. I'm not big on zombie horror, and after reading your review, I might check-it out on screen, but I'm going to pass on the novel. Thanks for the heads up.
ReplyDeleteYeah, I hardly ever say that the movie was better than the book, but this time it definitely was. I usually don't read a lot of zombie horror books either, but I happened to have seen the movie and enjoyed it so I decided to give it a go.
DeleteI definitely thought the movie was better than the book, so I wouldn't really recommend reading it. It wasn't super bad, but it did make me feel like I was wasting my time a little.
ReplyDelete