Review ~ World War Z by Max Brooks

The Zombie War came unthinkably close to eradicating humanity. Max Brooks, driven by the urgency of preserving the acid-etched first-hand experiences of the survivors from those apocalyptic years, traveled across the United States of America and throughout the world, from decimated cities that once teemed with upwards of thirty million souls to the most remote and inhospitable areas of the planet. He recorded the testimony of men, women, and sometimes children who came face-to-face with the living, or at least the undead, hell of that dreadful time.World War Z is the result. Never before have we had access to a document that so powerfully conveys the depth of fear and horror, and also the ineradicable spirit of resistance, that gripped human society through the plague years.

Ranging from the now infamous village of New Dachang in the United Federation of China, where the epidemiological trail began with the twelve-year-old Patient Zero, to the unnamed northern forests where untold numbers sought a terrible and temporary refuge in the cold, to the United States of Southern Africa, where the Redeker Plan provided hope for humanity at an unspeakable price, to the west-of-the-Rockies redoubt where the North American tide finally started to turn, this invaluable chronicle reflects the full scope and duration of the Zombie War. 

Most of all, the book captures with haunting immediacy the human dimension of this epochal event. Facing the often raw and vivid nature of these personal accounts requires a degree of courage on the part of the reader, but the effort is invaluable because, as Mr. Brooks says in his introduction, “By excluding the human factor, aren’t we risking the kind of personal detachment from history that may, heaven forbid, lead us one day to repeat it? And in the end, isn’t the human factor the only true difference between us and the enemy we now refer to as ‘the living dead’?”

Review

Who isn't on a zombie kick these days? I'm one of those obsessional thinkers who can't get enough and am secretly planning her course of action just in case moaning zombies take over the earth.

World War Z was recommended to me by my awesome cousin, so I just had to give it a shot. I'd never heard of it before, but An Oral History of the Zombie War? I was all over it.

This book was different from those I normally read. In the format of interviewer-interviewee, the book holds accounts of the zombie war and the efforts to "clean up" from several points of view. It feels real when you're reading it, and you're tempted to refer back to your history books just to make sure your teachers weren't holding out on you.

Brooks did his homework, combining real people and events with fiction. The jargon was pretty heavy (thank goodness for endnotes), but that's what made the content more tangible. Military guys aren't going to talk in way so us mundane civilians can understand ~ they're going to speak in the language they live everyday, and Brooks used this reality to create an image of history so distinct that it feels as if it really happened.

I won't say this is an easy read. You have to pay attention and focus on the chronology of events as Brooks jumps from one interview to another. It's interesting to see the horror unfold from the points of view of so many different people, civilian and military alike, from all over the world. There isn't one main character, and it's more of a historical documentary than a fictional novel, but the storyline is there among the broken souls and wretched emotions of those involved in the beginning of the zombie war to the eventual "end" and clean up.

Kobo Highlights

I don't know if great times make great men, but I know they can kill them.

The monsters that rose from the dead, they are nothing compared to the ones we carry in our hearts.

The more work you do, the more money you make, the more peons you hire to free you up to make more money. That's the way the world works. But one day it doesn't.

Freedom isn't just something you have for the sake of having, you have to want something else first and then want the freedom to fight for it.

Happy Reading Everyone :)


~ Keely ~

Hollowland ~ Review

"This is the way the world ends - not with a bang or a whimper, but with zombies breaking down the back door."

Nineteen-year-old Remy King is on a mission to get across the wasteland left of America, and nothing will stand in her way - not violent marauders, a spoiled rock star, or an army of flesh-eating zombies.

I read Amanda Hocking's Hollowland in two days. I've done that will all of her books ~ there's just something about her writing that draws you in and forces you to block out the rest of the world. It kicks off with Remy fighting her way out of a quarantine or a safe-zone. She's badass, so she kicks and screams her way out, saving  a couple other girls along the way. However, her little brother, Max, was evacuated, and although she has no idea where he is, she makes it her mission to find him, no matter how many zombies she's likely to run into along the way.

Remy is one of the few female characters I respect. She she kicks more butt than the boys, and she never fusses or waits to be saved. Her one flaw is that she shuts down her emotions (although, she considers that a strength) and refuses to enjoy any kind of normality in this crazy world. Maybe she thinks it's an illusion, maybe it's just that she's been in survival mode for so long that she's afraid or doesn't know how to revert back to who she was. Despite her best efforts, she cares and will do anything in her power to make sure her new family stays safe.

The plot is typical of apocalyptic novels these days ~ a virus infects the human race, turning them into flesh-eating monsters, and those of the minority that remain uninfected must try to survive in a world completely transformed from anything they've ever known. It's back to the basics with a few battles along the way. What makes this story is the characters. I've described my admiration for Remy, but Harlow with her naive and youthful way of looking at things offsets Remy's constant serious tone. Lazlo, my personal favorite, and his transformation from a spoiled rockstar with no other real skills than being in the spotlight to an ordinary but all around good man who teaches Remy a thing or two about how life is still happening around them, even among the walking dead. I'm a character driven reader, so although I really liked the plot, it's the interactions and relationships of the characters that strike me the most.

Amanda Hocking rocks ~ there's really no other way to put it. Her writing is simple and flows smoothly from page to page and her characters are dynamic and believable.

Give this one a shot! I'm tellin' ya, it's a pretty sweet read :)

Happy Reading Everyone :)


~ Keely ~

Article 5

New York, Los Angeles, and Washington, D.C., have been abandoned. 

The Bill of Rights has been revoked, and replaced with the Moral Statutes. 

There are no more police—instead, there are soldiers. There are no more fines for bad behavior—instead, there are arrests, trials, and maybe worse. People who get arrested usually don't come back. 

Seventeen-year-old Ember Miller is old enough to remember that things weren't always this way. Living with her rebellious single mother, it's hard for her to forget that people weren't always arrested for reading the wrong books or staying out after dark. It's hard to forget that life in the United States used to be different. 

Ember has perfected the art of keeping a low profile. She knows how to get the things she needs, like food stamps and hand-me-down clothes, and how to pass the random home inspections by the military. Her life is as close to peaceful as circumstances allow. 

That is, until her mother is arrested for noncompliance with Article 5 of the Moral Statutes. And one of the arresting officers is none other than Chase Jennings—the only boy Ember has ever loved.

Article 5 is another of the increasingly popular novels of the apocalyptic variety ~ a genre that I've become obsessed with. The U.S. is no longer the 'land of the free,' but is oppressed by a government comparable to Puritan law. Ember, a regular girl trying to live as normal a life as she kind, finds her home and everything she knows ripped from her fingertips. It's only then she discovers how the world really is and who she needs to be to survive it. 

I'm not gunna lie, Ember had me ripping my hair out. She began as this completely naive little girl who thought any kind of violence was abhorrent even when the honorable Chase used it to keep her safe from trash who'd like nothing more than to rape and murder her. I wanted to slap her silly and throw her to the wolves if that's what she wanted. Her childish actions were, for lack of a better word, completely *annoying*, and I couldn't understand some of her ridiculous logic. However, to contradict my previous opinion, Ember grew as a character from a little girl blinded by the safety of her former life to a tough woman who stopped lying to herself and finally saw the world as it truly was. It was then I realized all her actions up until that point were based on the reality of her memories ~ she couldn't let go of her past until there was nothing left.

The relationship between Ember and Chase was...intense ~ but unlike a lot of novels I've read recently, it didn't feel forced or unbelievable. One of my favorite aspects were the triggered  flashbacks Ember experiences on her travels with Chase who, to Ember, seems like a completely different person. We get a chance to see how their relationship grew, how they were torn apart, and compare it to the tension between them now. It added that element of raw emotion that I can't get enough of, and in addition to the action, suspense, and horror, made for a very textured read.

This is obviously the first book in a series, and I have a feeling the next book is going to be even more exciting. As a debut novel, Kristen Simmons couldn't have done any better. Her writing style flows perfectly and I found myself unable to put it down. The storyline grows and evolves, taking you from one world to another, and the characters ~ big or small ~ are so believable and dynamic that it is impossible not to form a connection with them.

All in all ~ **Highly Recommend** 

Happy Reading Everyone :)