Warm Bodies: A Fresh Perspective From a Rotting Body

Introducing Warm Bodies, by Isaac Marion, a zombie love story that- wait, what? A zombie love story? Well, now I have heard everything. Vampires and werewolves seem likely enough candidates for paranormal romance, but zombies? They’re rotting! They can’t talk (well, in this book, they can form short, drawn out sentences)! They eat human flesh (which is somehow much worse than drinking blood to most people. I don’t know how that one slipped by)! And yet, despite all of this, Isaac Marion has created a zombie protagonist who is not only compelling, but a romantic interest. Most importantly, R is an anomaly in the zombie world. That’s how it always starts, isn't it?

For starters, R is quite a philosophical and contemplative zombie, which even he admits is strange and unnatural. Sure, he shuffles around an abandoned airport with a bunch of other zombies, but he wonders why zombies are the way they are. He muses a lot, wondering “How did this start? How did we become what we are? Was it some mysterious virus? Gamma rays? An ancient curse? Or something even more absurd?” Marion subtly gives back story to the apocalypse, either through R's thoughts or flashbacks from humans (I’ll get to that soon). R also contemplates about the purpose of being a zombie. He remarks that he could remember a time when he was purposeful and accomplished things, but now he just wanders an airport and eats flesh sometimes. He says “being dead is easy.” I myself have been wondering and even asking my friends if they’d rather live a simple life without responsibilities or worries, or if they’d rather live a full life currently, wrought with emotion, challenges, pleasures and hardships.

Everyone picks the latter choice.

R would as well.

Everything is flipped turned upside down (thanks, Will Smith) when R, his friend M and a small hoard of zombies attack a recon group of humans in the city. R kills a boy and takes a bite from his brain (those with weak stomachs, beware), instantly flooding him with the boy’s memories. The boy Perry’s memories are exactly the reason he likes brains; they’re his drug of choice and make him feel alive. When he sees the blonde girl form the boy’s memories, his girlfriend Julie, R is quite taken with her. He saves Julie, brings her back to the airport to protect her and to keep her safe. As R spends more time with Julie and revisiting Perry’s memories, R starts to feel alive and fall in love with this headstrong, beautiful girl. Of course, teenage romance just isn't easy, especially when the object of your affection’s dad wants you dead. This time for good.

I don’t want to give anything else away, but I would like to make the disclaimer that this book is pretty gritty at times. Don’t expect some light and fluffy paranormal romance novel. There is strong language at times. However, don’t let these deter you from reading this book. Despite the language and somewhat graphic descriptions, there is a lot more at heart to this novel than shock value. This is definitely not Twilight, and it doesn't ruin zombies either. It’s not just a simple love story. Marion describes zombies in a pretty gruesome and sometimes rather explicit way, especially when it comes to zombies’ actions in their attempt to feel human again. There actually is a battle where people get hurt, and gasp! Some even die! It's an actual book, instead a long fanfiction Stephanie sneezed out one day and handed to her publisher. Actually, Cracked.com did a funny piece on how to turn awful fanfiction into a bestseller. Twilight meets all 6 of the criteria. 

The best part about Warm Bodies is that it isn't a simple love story. R’s muses about how the zombie apocalypse started, what it is to be human, the interference of  the Boneys and who they are in our society (the people who want things to stay the same, no matter what) etc. These are all things I found myself relating to. I was able to stop and think about those questions and what they meant to me. Unfortunately for people I know, this also means I now ask them “what if” and “would you rather” questions, much to their chagrin.

The writing was concise, yet descriptive enough to get the picture. It was nice to have a break from the exhausting over-descriptive prose that appears in some novels I read. The characters are compelling and the story line is certainly unique. Besides, just check out what he wrote for his Amazon.com bio: “I've written a few books, but most of them are terrible. Warm Bodies is the only one so far that's worth your time. I'm about to turn 30. I'm 6'3. White. Left handed. Mildly bearded. I write strange stories about strange events, often from the perspectives of strange things. I apologize in advance for any injury or inconvenience.” If that’s not enough of a clue to his writing style and sense of humor, then I don’t know what is.

Hey! He really is mildly bearded!

I would definitely recommend Warm Bodies to anyone who likes a little bit of romance, but also wants adventure, battles, zombie apocalypses, and likes the idea of being able to change.

I saw the movie a few weeks after reading the movie and I thought it was pretty good. The book didn't have too many complexities and it wasn't too long. These, along with a plot people can follow and like, are pluses in Hollywood studios’ books. It was Hollywoodified, what with casting a Caucasian actress for the part of a black girl, and changing the ambiguous age of R to definitely teenage. It added more humor, simplified the plot, and ditched the zombie wife and adopted zombie kids, but they rather cleverly kept the two kids in the movie as random characters who view scenes in a detached manner sometimes. I would say it’s a good companion to the book, more of a lighter, more humorous, more quirky teenage comedy romance adventure than anything else.

Oh good, well that narrows it down. Also, people keep comparing it to Twilight, but I didn't really see a connection, other than the fact that it has a boy with pale skin, a girl, romance and conflict. And the girl can look a little like Kristen Stewart at times, but she acts so much better. And her character isn't painfully awkward. On the one hand, you lose some of the complexity of the philosophical internal monologues, but on the other, Nicholas Hoult is a stunning actor and I can’t help but be drawn to an interesting movie plot with some inclusion of romance. And if it takes place during a zombie apocalypse, even better.