Review: Warm Bodies by Isaac Marion

Blurb from Goodreads

R is having a no-life crisis—he is a zombie. He has no memories, no identity, and no pulse, but he is a little different from his fellow Dead. He may occasionally eat people, but he’d rather be riding abandoned airport escalators, listening to Sinatra in the cozy 747 he calls home, or collecting souvenirs from the ruins of civilization.

And then he meets a girl.

First as his captive, then his reluctant guest, Julie is a blast of living color in R’s gray landscape, and something inside him begins to bloom. He doesn’t want to eat this girl—although she looks delicious—he wants to protect her. But their unlikely bond will cause ripples they can’t imagine, and their hopeless world won’t change without a fight.

My Thoughts

Zombie never become my favorite story, if I have to choose between other stories I’m sure I’ll pick it up after I’ve read all of other stories. So, this one is out of my radar for a while, though my friends keep telling me to read it. Then one day I read that it’ll become a movie. Since I really want to watch it I have to read it first. That’s my story how I ended up read this book, now let’s move to Isaac Marion’s zombie story.

“The world is changed. I feel it in the water. I feel it in the earth. I smell it in the air. Much that once was, is lost, for none now live who remember it.” (Galadriel, The Lord of The Rings by JRR Tolkien)

Sometime in the future there is a plague that make human become zombie, R is one of them. Actually he didn’t remember his real name. He and other zombies called themselves just by an alphabet. So R it is, who be friended with M. He also didn’t remember anything from his previous life. That’s why zombies like to eat brain, to taste and to remember the memories. Although it was somebody else’s memories and just a glimpse it’s more than enough to fulfill their need. One day when he hunts he met Julie, a human girl. There’s something between them that cause R changed. As times goes by, other zombies feel the change too. This story consists of 3 parts or step as Marion said. First is about R and the whole zombie community, second is about R and Julie and their world and third is about the changing.

This book reminds me of The Host by Stephenie Meyer and one of my favorite books of all time, The Road by Cormac McCarthy. R & Perry relationship is similar to Melanie and Wanda from The Host, though I much prefer R and Perry in this case. I like their relationship and the fact that Perry didn’t blame R for killed him is beyond my thought.

And there are some parts that similar to The Road. The memory, how R craves it and it’s one of important things for him. R said But it does make me sad that we’ve forgotten our names. Out of everything, this seems to me the most tragic. I miss my own and I mourn for everyone else’s, because I’d like to love them, but I don’t know who they are and ‘I like how you remember things,’ I say. She looks at me. ‘Well, we have to. We have to remember everything. If we don’t, by the time we grow up it’ll be gone forever’.

While in The Road Just remember that the things you put into your head are there forever, he said. You might want to think about that. You forget some things, don’t you? Yes. You forget what you want to remember and you remember what you want to forget. Then, both of it have a mother who left the main characters in the similar way. The setting and the world building also similar but I don’t mind of the similarity because Marion wrote it in a different way.

One thing that the most stand out about this book is the writing. I never thought it’ll be beautifully written with some kind of lyrical. Yet, in some parts I kind of trouble to understand it. I have to reread it to get what the characters and story mean. And I’m not quite satisfied with the ending. There are a lot of questions that hang in there without the answers. I also wish there is more action since it’s a zombie story after all. But as my first zombie book, I enjoyed it, even with the part about brain and body eating which is described well.

For those who haven’t read it yet, here is a message from R:

And this is what I learn after read it:

Result: 3/5 Stars