Warm Bodies is the most absolutely stunning book I have read in a very long time.  I feel like there has been a blast of purity tossing aside the detritus of poor fiction as I face this beautifully written, poignant, terrifying love story.

How incredible that Isaac Marion dares bring us a first person zombie POV and make us fall in love with him! ‘R’ lives such a monochrome existence and yet he is vividly three dimensional as he clings to what he remembers of life and slowly struggles to reclaim his humanity. The layers in this book build, with pop culture referencing, sarcastic, sometimes grunting, humour, thought provoking commentaries on what makes us human, flights of beauty and horrific suffering.

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. …..  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.

Yes, Isaac Marion gives us zombies. They eat people, gnawing at flesh, tearing out throats, savouring brains …  they are horrific creatures.  They live a grey existence being dead and yet animate. And yet there is something within that clings to the rituals of life, with versions of a church, crèche, schools that lack meaning but give a framework of a haunting familiarity … as if these rituals cast shadows that may not be understood  but are recognized as somehow important. And deep within their minds there is the mystery of thought, even though so much of action is now lost.

Erotica is meaningless for us now. The blood doesn’t pump, the passion doesn’t surge. I’ve walked in on M with his ‘girlfriends’ before, and they’re just standing there naked, staring at each other, sometimes rubbing their bodies together but looking tired and lost. Maybe it’s a kind of death throe. A distant echo of that great motivator that once started wars and inspired symphonies, that drove human history out of the caves and into space. M may be holding on, but those days are over now. Sex, once a law as undisputed as gravity, has been disproved. The equation is erased, the blackboard broken. …. And it’s one of the surest signs that we’re dead.

The humour is black and relentless, dressed up in appalling circumstances where a most unlikely love story grows.  

While the world is overrun with zombies there are conclaves of humans gathering together for safety and defense. One of the central ironies of the book is that zombies are free to roam anywhere but have no interest, while humans feel their humanity stagnating as they stay locked inside stadiums for safety. The reasons for their confines might be different, but the results are remarkably similar. 

It will take both a zombie and a human to challenge boundaries, fall in love and find a place for hope to grow.

And … I am at a loss … I know that I am unable to do this book justice. All I can say is that this is funny, horrific, frightening, moving …. Quite the most amazing and enjoyable book I have read for a very long time.  Five bright shining stars!!!

This may well be the best book I’ve read all year! It’s original and well written and just left me blown-away; taking an age old zombie horror and adding completely believable romantic elements in the middle of a different type of struggle to survive.

‘R’ is a zombie; zombies eat people; but if you’ve read (and enjoyed) Clan of the Cave Bear, you may understand the ‘wow’ feeling of having your mind expanded in ways you’d just never conceived.

Isaac Marion has created a wonderfully unique world, that is perfectly overlaid a world we are comfortable with, so there is a sense of familiarity that means the reader isn’t struggling to come to terms with completely new concepts, yet he manages to introduce a post apocalyptic America, where zombies rule, in a very original way.

Living humans have locked themselves up in sporting arenas, which have created instant, defendable cities. But the zombies aren’t just stumbling around waiting to be picked off; they’ve formed groups, and have a semi-organised social structure.  It’s the exploration of the zombie group mind that makes this book so original. We see the world through the eyes and thoughts of the zombie ‘R’.

Some of the interaction between R and Julie does require a bit of ‘suspension of belief’ as Mr Marion tries to work this new idea of zombie/human friendship into a believable plot structure, but it doesn’t take too long for things to start falling into place.

This is a very hard book to review without discussing too much of the plot, and giving spoilers; but it is very well written, in a well thought out first person monologue, with fascinating characters, interesting ideas and a very strong plot.

I’m not sure if there is a book two in the pipelines; Warm Bodies was complete, but there are so many stories that could come from within the wonderful world that Mr Marion has created.

Warm Bodies is zombie love like you’ve never experienced; it’s witty, funny, charming, heartbreaking, thought provoking and just a bloody good read.